skysight-inc/HackerNews huggingface dataset:
As far as I can tell the official reason for switching from gcong to gsetting is that the new backend is optimized for fast reading of config values.

As for the old schema, there were two options separate xml files in a directory per-app and a big consolidated xml file. There were some measuring showing that the second variant which was opening just a file and not 50 was a lot faster and considerably reduced startup times.

But now if you are going to put everything in a big pile of xml where it is hard to find and edit/remove/add options without a specialized tool you can as well use a binary format.

At least, that's my reconstruction of events.
Indeed, I've reduced mine to '@barrkel'. But I'm not hungry for fame or followers.
In case anyone else was wondering about the term SLAPP, from Wikipedia:

"A strategic lawsuit against public participation (SLAPP) is a lawsuit that is intended to censor, intimidate, and silence critics by burdening them with the cost of a legal defense until they abandon their criticism or opposition."

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Strategic_lawsuit_against_publi...
If you judge the entire tea party movement by a riled up audience acting stupid at a debate, you're missing an important point (the exact one being made in the last nine words of the quoted sentence).

Also, if you're being consistent, any show of idiocy from OWS protesters (you can start with the Lyndon LaRouche bunch) should lead you to discount that entire movement, too.
I guess there is a max reply depth? So I am replying here...

I am a game developer, actually, and I believe games can have great social value. So I support you in pursuing your idea.

"Rewards" systems like the one described here, though, are not about giving anything to the audience. They are purely about taking money away from people, and doing it as manipulatively and sneakily as possible. I believe the net social value for things like this is deeply negative.
Oh wait, now it lets me reply here. See above.
Growing a Data-Driven Startup - Part 1: Using MongoDB instead of an RDBMS
Ehr.. Nautilus still exists, it wasn't abandoned. IIRC E17 is used on various phones, Reiser killed someone, Parrot is still under development.

Perpetual flux and incohesiveness is too management speak for me. Loads of people who scratch an itch working out in the open.

Look inside a big company, pretty much the same thing going on.
Performance and footprint. If I remember correctly, the binary format is used so that dconf can mmap the configuration into memory. This means that a read on the configuration database doesn't involve any system calls and only one copy needs to be in memory (no matter how many processes are using it).

http://live.gnome.org/dconf#Design

I'm generally a fan of text-based configuration files but in this case I think the benefit exceeds the cost. Reading configuration used to take a non-trivial amount of time on startup.
My reaction exactly.

I'd also add: Landlords earn every penny that they collect.
There are over 300 different models of the MSP430, ranging from the G2 or Value Line parts having 1k of Flash, a couple hundred bytes of RAM and usually one timer to the F5 series with 100-pin parts having 256kB of Flash and 16k of RAM, and 4 timers. Limiting yourself to stuff that's compatible with the $4.30 starter kit is not an accurate representation of the MSP430 lineup.
TL;DR: Paypal is embedding an image into its emails using the "//" shortcut, instead of specifying http: or https:.

This is wrong since it assumes the mail user agent loaded the content from a web server. There's zero benefit to dropping http: or https: in a URL in an email.
Agreed. But north and south are 2 extremes; I travel between Netherlands, France and Spain with a bit of Germany. The mix makes it great; TOO laid back has problems but having the Spanish feeling when working with clients in the Netherlands gives you great advantage and economic wealth.

I used to be NL only and this was very stressful; we have very large (for EU) clients which were pushing through projects at great speed and everyone was stressed. It made a lot of my colleagues and me physically ill. We used to work hard. In NL that's no longer the idea; it's a national 'thing' now that people (even big company CEOs) want to spend more time with their families and so work a lot less hours per week and still the economy grows. But that's something else (don't know why that is). The thing is that I always wondered why there was so much pressure behind every project, because, usually, after delivering the technical part, there is a lot of other work to be done which takes them months or years to complete after which the entire project usually gets binned because it's not relevant anymore.

Southern Spain teaches you that you can just tell those clients to stuff it; we deliver when we deliver and if that's not ok, then that's a shame, go elsewhere. Of course it's said in slightly different tone and SCRUM is used a lot but it works. Clients want quality, not speed. Speed is almost never relevant. Actually I have, in my 25 year software career encountered exactly 2 times it was time critical. Out of over a 1000 projects I managed or built. And 1 of those 2 times the client actually messed up the launch, not us. I never thought about this (stupid me) until I spent significant time in Spain; that made me see that there is always enough time for anything. Being in a hurry is just some lame excuse for not having a solid plan. If it just is done fast enough, the profits will come, right?

I have too many examples for this; few years ago we built a Facebook app for about $100k which HAD TO BE DONE in 3 weeks. Of course that's not possible, but he, we are up for a challenge and the specs were ok. So we slept in the office, worked ourselves crazy and finished it. This was 2006 or something, the app STILL is not launched.

Southern Spain taught me; if you are in a hurry, your plan sucks. But I'm making more money than I ever made doing projects the stressed way and so i'm contributing to the economy and making (many) jobs.
There's not a max reply length. The reply button takes a bit of time to show up sometimes. I'm not clear on how long that is supposed to be or what factors influence it. When I first joined, I did the exact same thing as you are doing here: Replied higher up in the thread on occasions when I couldn't find the "reply" link/button/option.

Thanks so much for taking me seriously. Sometimes people think I'm just being snarky. What do you think does work for trying to monetize a game? I'm not sure there will ever be any money in my plans to make a game (in part because the target audience has no money, only debts from large medical expenses), but my sons also want to make games. Somewhere in there, someone needs to make actual money. Any thoughts?
There absolutely are always opportunities, but those opportunities are not always available to those that won't or can't treat the investments as a full time job.

Perhaps, but more often than not I hear this excuse given by people who don't spend any time researching their investments. According to the BLS, the average American spends 2.7 hours per day watching TV. If that time were instead spent on investing people would be surprised at the difference in the financial situation.

As long as there is inflation, all you need to do is buy assets to make money.

If you're only keeping pace with inflation I hope you plan to consume a lot less in the future, otherwise you're just treading water. I don't consider that "making" money.
I believe the GP was speaking globally. There are probably a billion people who would love to be poor in america.
What's a 'pure sysadmin'? If they DBA are they unpure? or code? or do biz dev? or support? These all seem pretty normal for a sysadmin nowadays.

Reminds me of the 'No true Scotsman' thing:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/No_true_Scotsman
I've read variants of the point that the protesters are "rich" by a global standard. It's an interesting observation, but I don't see how it should change the protesters actions or positions or mine as a mostly-supporter.

I'd compare this to the civil rights movement. There were plenty of privileged whites who protested segregation in the US. You could have then reasonably argued that they were privileged because the US systematically enslaved and then repressed blacks. And I would say to this, "So what?" They were protesting something they saw as a problem, on the basis of their shared humanity.
This article soooo needed writing.

There are people building entire careers out of financial Fibonacci fakery.
It's not clear to me what you think sysadmins do.

Who will make sure your provisioned configurations have proper redundancy?

Who will move your domain when an availability zone has an outage?

Who will work with upstream networks when you're getting DDoS'd?

Who will wake up in the middle of the night when a service you're integrating with is not working?

Maybe you've never run a large system at scale, or maybe ou just had bad experiences with "SysAdmins" that didn't, but the role of hand-holding a complex, integrated service is not going away. The fact that you may not need screwdrivers for certain systems is almost beside the point.

Nevermind that, when you're at sufficient scale, you can run your own data centers cheaper than Amazon. Break-even happens well before a thousand nodes.

(I'm not a sysadmin; i'm an engineer who is very glad we have good sysadmins around :-)
Revolutions start with the 10% that will be more actively involved, even if that only means retweeting right now. But I believe polls have already showed that most Americans /support agree with the OWS protests.
Ask HN: Is it improper to invite ex-coworkers to join your startup?
A year ago I quit my job and went fulltime with my startup, but before quitting I met some wonderful people at the company I worked for.

And I'd love to invite one of them to work with me, but I felt this is kinda improper to entice somebody from my ex-employer...

But now I heard that this person is quitting anyway. He got bored, sick, tired and pissed off by his job, so I made my offer that he accepted.

I've sent a polite notice to my ex-boss which read: "just so you know, I've sent an offer to one of your people who's quitting anyway, JFYI, hope thats OK" and he totally lost his temper.
He called us traitors and insists I cancel my offer, because this is a threat to his company, because his staff "should not know they have a choice to work for YOU when they quit my company!". So I'm kinda confused... We never signed any "non-compete" agreements, nor promised anything like this verbally, so I guess we're not doing anything wrong right?
Spikes, Logs and the POWER CLAW
It's not the information that is copyrighted, it's the selection of what countries fall into what regions (and what to call the regions), which countries or cities to include, the order of the geographic regions, and even the order in which the geographic regions and their corresponding timezones are displayed. These are all choices that requires some amount of creativity (in the sense that they are not merely purely functional choices).

Feist stands for the proposition that any creative choice made in presenting information is sufficient for a valid copyright as to the creative choices made (thought the underlying factual information itself may not be copyrighted).

If this were to go to court, the copyright owner would win. How could the database be changed to get around the copyright at issue? Get rid of the region assignments, broaden (or narrow) the selection of cities/states/etc. included, or even simply flip the order in which geographic area and the corresponding timezone are listed.
> Some APIs are not ready for developer use

If they aren't ready, why does apple use them?

> Apple does right to forbid their use to avoid crashes on the next iOS upgrade

Why doesn't this argument apply to apple? Are there any other methods of preventing crashing?

> Your complain should be: Apple doesn't open source their system.

No. My complaint is that apple doesn't treat developers as fellow programmers, but more like "end developers" or something. Apple gets to do it differently. Case in point being OP's post.

> And I don't understand why you post random links about issues you are not familiar with

You're projecting :-/
As I said. They have a point, an important point. I just wonder if they realize the whole thing is just the pot calling the kettle black.

I guess what I mean to say is that the world order needs to change, but I don't think this is the way to go about affecting said change. The movement is basically asking for a new form of everything ... but they're asking the Old Form (tm) to do the hard work of changing.
The facts are not copyrighted; the organization and choice of items is what is copyrighted (i.e., choosing to have entries for some major cities like Los Angeles or Rio de Janeiro, but not for others, like Detroit or Perth.)
AI Distribution: Siri versus Google Search
Can someone give a coherent explanation as to why OpenOffice and LibreOffice should not merge?
Interesting to note that nobody mentions Enlightenment or the Ubuntu-based Bodhi Linux disto. I really can't figure out if Enlightenment is simply living in a dark hole of obscurity or if it's actively ignored.
(And if it's being ignored I'd love to know more about why, I've always enjoyed it as a desktop environment.)
I know that is the reason for starting the OOorg on Apache, so the license stuff is easier for IBM.

I just don't think it'll work. Most distribution companies prefer GPL because in that case everybody benefits. You cannot take the work of all companies, then do your on thing on top and don't give back.

Believe it would be easier to not have Lotus Symphony open source. That, or change strategy and rely on brandname. I don't think it matters much that something is fully open sourced and can be reused by another company.

Marketing, trademark and strong brand (meaning: trusted, supported, reliable) goes a long way. Can still ask money for it, and if someone wants to give it away for free they'll have to use a different name for it (similar to the Firefox name in Debian).
Liberia Electios 2011 - Opposition Raise Questions Over Results
A major difference is that those agitating for change stand to benefit greatly (or believe they do) by that same change. White civil rights protesters were more altruistic.
Not at all. Your previous employer is probably just beginning to see that he will be the last one left on a sinking ship.
I think the comparison should really be between Quora and the whole Stack Exchange family of sites.

I think there are two main reasons many of the areas in Quora are useless. First, Quora never got commitment from a group of verifiable experts to answer questions in an area before opening. Its a chicken and egg problem, experts won't join if there aren't already experts. SE goes halfway there by ensuring there is a community of people to use each particular area the site before bringing it online.

Second, question askers on Quora are lazy. They don't explain what they have tried to do to learn about the answer already. They often don't know things that could have easily been found on google in a few minutes. Nobody wants to spend more than a fraction of the time on an answer than the asker has spent looking for an answer. So when an expert goes on the site they see a community of people who just want to get their knowledge without putting in any work themselves. QA sites will never replace search (as many of the Quora fans claim) for this reason.

On SO this isn't as much of a problem. First,because its very hard to find answers to programming problems with search . Second, question askers have to explain carefully what they have tried in order to expect answers. However, on some other SE sites this is just as much of a problem as on Quora.
>>But when she grows up, she learns that everything has a velocity, which has to be some number, so it might as well be high.

It's annoying how you say 'she' because it distracts me from your content into thinking about feminism.
You're not doing anything wrong, legally or ethically. People are adults and can make their own career decisions. Besides, if you can get someone great on your team and save them from an awful job, you're doing something good. Just don't send any more notes to your ex-boss.
Very nice. I'm back in my retro computing phase atm and trying to do some ports from the C64 to the MSX (fun hacking!). This is great work; any annotated assembly source?
His point is that Amazon hires sysadmins, not him.
However, that seems based on a very narrow definition or understanding of what a "sysadmin" is or does for the business.
I identify "sysadmin" with "operations" but perhaps others see it differently.
Actually, it's probably a Discordian thing. Eris and Fives and all.
probably because at nearly every place I've worked at the sysadmin/ops group was the #1 obstacle to getting things done. Sure some of it was "saving you from yourself", but a lot of was pure obstinatance for no other reason than I think sysadmins just cant turn it off anymore... much as your mom says "dont frown your face might get stuck", it appears a lot of people (not just sysadmins, developers too - you know the one, in the corner who is old and surly, been there forever, and hasnt been promoted in about as long).

The deck is stacked against sysadmins - developers are the people who deliver business value to leaders, and sysadmins are the ones who cost money and say 'no'. When you are on a tight timetable, the person who says "sure" is the one who gets the high fives... assuming things work out, of course.
Since he was quitting anyway, if anything, the only thing you did "wrong" was send the FYI. Seems potentially gauche, like, er, sending a note to a chum saying "I'm banging your ex"?*

I do not have a company and have never been in this situation. But that's kind of what it sounds like to me.

* WRT other comments made here, I will add that timing and delivery make a big difference. It's not just what you do, but how and when.
Meditation in Entrepreneurship
It's called ifttt http://ifttt.com/wtf
The Linux Action Show Reviews Ubuntu & Kubuntu 11.0
To be fair, if you look for it, you'll find it everywhere, because of confirmation bias.
Tarver would be better off letting go of his urge to tinker with licenses and just run with one of the existing options. The risk posed by suboptimal licensing is negligible compared to the risk of his radical new language not getting used at all, and every time people get distracted by nitpicking license terms -- as they invariably do -- a significant portion of the tiny and precious attention budget for Qi/Shen gets blown through. This is a shame.
Rdioh: a wrapper for Rdio's API in Haskell
This is not a problem with "non-compete" per se, but with use of confidential/proprietary information such as who's employed, what's the org chart. You have a much better case if the ex-colleague publicly shares his contact information, say on Facebook or Twitter or LinkedIn. Otherwise, your ex-boss could make the argument that you "stole" or misappropriate company confidential information. Yes it could be a very weak case but I have seen such threats being made. The etiquette is to not actively seek ex-coworkers for say at least one year. On the other hand, if you drop hints and the ex-coworker initiated the conversation about joining you, then you're fine. That's my take (not a lawyer).

Like the other commenter said, you did a dis-service to yourself by notifying your ex-boss, especially given your wording (face-palm).
AI and test automation: teach your computer to play web-based games on its own
Yes. I had thought the flat base was a distinct feature, but I was wrong. It's been used for years.

(http://hub.tv-ark.org.uk/images/weather/bbc_images/bbc_weath...)

Also, a simple Google image search of [cloud logo] gives many different varieties of cloud. Some have bumpy bases; some have more or less than three circles; etc.
Short answer: no, it isn't improper.

Longer answer: it's case by case, depending on the relationships of the individuals involved. Formally, you don't owe your ex-employer anything, and unless you've explicitly signed an agreement that you're breaking, there are no worries. Of course, it's probably more complicated than that, so use the old put-yourself-in-the-other's-shoes principle. Do you feel like the way you're approaching it is wrong?

As you've explained it, the guy quit and your ex-boss is childish. You're all grownups and are free to make decisions. No point putting yourself out to protect someone who likely doesn't care about you or your business.
It depends. As long as they freely choose to leave and then you hook up, that's just fine. If you poach then you're setting yourself up for being poached in return.

Keep the high ground and you'll do just great.

One of my co-founders was a guy that I worked with for years and I only approached him after he left the company that he was working with, afterwards of course we got a lot of flak but I could easily prove that I had not approached him until after he quit and that was that.

Of course legally you're on solid ground either way, but it's a small world and word does get around so it is better to play it safe and clean rather than legal.
Generally employees' salaries are the biggest expense in almost every startup and at every stage. Hence the saying that "overhead walks on two feet"
I always had this discussion with friends. Let's say you had Bill Gates money - it would be very very very hard for him to use up all his money even if he kept buying up things (Mind you - giving it all away is not included). Imagine how hard it would be to use up $50 billion?
> If this were to go to court, the copyright owner would win.

That depends on when they became aware of it, if they've been aware of it for a long time but didn't sue then that will considerably weaken their case. They won't lose their copyright but they may lose their ability to get any damages.
I really needed this too, thank you PG.

I was going to post something like this yesterday, but then I thought it was probably redundant.
Cover Orange 2
I would be wary reading too much into polled support for OWS. As the movement has no defined goals or means, it's an abstract concept that it's easy to, at least, not be against. Also, for that same reason, it's very easy to construct poll questions that give you the exact response you're looking for (not that it was difficult to begin with).

Also, FWIW, I don't think there's really enough data to say anything meaningful about the impact of re-tweeting on revolutions. Rather, "clicktivism" is often ridiculed for not contributing anything at all towards political means.
I'm not sure I follow that reasoning.

In Feist even copying made-up entries designed to detect copying was deemed to not be an infringement.

The statement that "this area is assigned to this timezone" is not a creative decision. It's an assertion of a fact. Even if it's a false fact made up by the author, it's still an assertion of a fact.

That information is not subject to copyright.

Perhaps the particular expression of the information is.... but I'm not sure how the tz database infringes on that.

Am I missing something?
But aren’t the core users the most important?

Shouldn’t Gnome 3 instead have been a spin-off or separate project from traditional Gnome?