skysight-inc/HackerNews huggingface dataset:
Completely agree. It's a major accomplishment, and if confirmed, will change the world. In my mind, it goes along with another fascinating development Reuters covered a while back having to do with rapid detection of micro-organisms. These guys say they've brought detection times of tuberculosis from 21 days to 4 days, e.coli from 24 hours down to 4 hours, and similar decreases in detection of a wide variety of other microorganisms using a very cost-effective technique well suited for developing nations where price is a major issue.

Combine prevention like this Malaria vaccine with rapid detection from these guys and you've got a nice one-two punch capable of fending of a whole host of things that are unnecessarily taking lives.

http://www.reuters.com/video/2011/02/15/us-company-says-rapi...
Downwardly scalable systems
Apple Stores Close for Celebration of Steve Jobs's Life
I disagree - I'm not an economist, but certainly here in the UK there's a lot of talk about access to credit being a significant limiting factor. Hence the government's 'credit easing' program, which is aimed at lending directly to businesses where the banks won't:

http://www.guardian.co.uk/politics/2011/oct/03/george-osborn...
I went to a Chicago ACM presentation of Ola's a couple of years ago talking about Ioke. It was really pretty impressive.

Seph (on the surface) actually reminds me a lot of Smalltalk.
Is personalized data like browsing habits or GPS info or anything else they collect market on and sell considered intellectual property? If so why can these companies sell it without compensating me?
Part of the problem here is that Wikipedia has traditionally had way more labor than money. So the notion of spending money to save labor -- common everywhere else -- isn't really the default Wikipedia reflex. That seems to be changing some in the last few years, but between the code and the data there's a lot of inertia there.
Http://www.addthis.com/bookmark.php?v=250&username=Supercross.com
Lot of things are hard to find (like deleting your account). And there is the issue of Facebook periodically changing the settings, knowing that meaning people won't bother figuring out what the changes mean and how it effects them.
The two paragraphs above the quoted ones are interesting too, for context:

>“There’s this thing that’s happening right now in user interface design that I find kind of shackling. The faux wood paneling trend, and the airport lavatory signage trend.” He laughs when he says this and pulls up a slide on his computer, a split screen of an Atari 2600 and… airport lavatory signage. It’s an obvious dig at both Apple and Microsoft.

>But what about Microsoft and their “authentically digital” design? “The problem with going too starkly systematic, forcing everything into this completely constrained, modernist palette, for both of them, you’re not leaving any room for the content to express itself.”
Isn't XProtect updated daily, and couldn't it now detect this trojan before it can do any damage?
When I saw the headline my first reaction was: What? Unbelievable, this sounds too good to be true, but maybe the guys from RTM really found a way to do that.

When I clicked on the link I realized it has not much to do with Siri and is just about synching other iPhone apps.

Last time I checked, there was nothing sticking up my ass, but I do come to HN because it is different from Lifehacker, BusinessInsider or HuffPo. Nevertheless I do have to admit that it is a brilliant marketing move. They even started a heated discussion on HN :-)

So to extend my comment from a hacker perspective I felt tricked.

From the perspective of an online marketer I have to admit it is a brilliant move.
The main reason businesses aren't hiring is that they're not convinced that putting extra people on staff will actually be profitable.

I believe it is deeper than that.

If we look to agriculture, there is a short expiration date on the job. If you don't get the crop off in a timely manner, you are quickly going to be out of business. I hear farmers constantly complaining how difficult it is to find good people, but they are left hiring just about anyone out of necessity.

Manufacturing is similar. You have to keep the products going out the door to stay in business. As such, manufacturers also need to hire someone, anyone, to get the job done. Like the farmers, manufacturers will spend the time to make them better employees.

However, in our technology based economy time does not matter. If you make a product and don't make any changes to it in several years, people will continue to buy your products anyway. You can afford to wait to hire who you feel is the very best, even if it takes years to find them. Once you are established, the only way you can lose revenue is if the competition does something significantly better; but they too are waiting on the best.

That is the problem that I see. There is no need to hire poor employees. You can wait to hire the best of the best. If they are busy right now, you can hire them later.
quickcheck is running makeChange with an arbitrary Int. maxBound :: Int here is 2147483647. When given a number that large, makeChange recurses a lot, subtracting one two-dollar coin at a time, so you blow the stack. This is where you need to consult a haskell guru to find a way to make your code tail-recursive -- or find a smarter algorithm (using mod c for example so it only needs to recurse 6 times total).

Amusingly, if you simply change the type to Integer -> [Integer], it all works ok. I suspect that since Integers have unbounded size, quickcheck only tests with reasonably small ones.
I've read the chapter in the book lean startup and again here. I fail to grasp the Minimum viability in that chapter.

Drew built a product with considerable reverse engineering before he got any feedback, tried explaining to the vcs and investors without much luck. It all worked when he created a video.

Where in the mvp in that? May be I am too thick to understand but for me this is a case of retrofitting the story to match your theory.

Dropbox had a great product that people loved with a better video. No, they did not use feedback loop to pivot and all that mvp stuff.
Hi kposehn,

Thanks for your detailed feedback!

1. What exactly do you mean by "there are tons of others across the world, and many of them are working the work-from-home-churn-and-burn scam and have a hell of a lot of money to burn."? Do you mean those "get rich overnight" scams?
I haven't really found any (non-datafeed-driven) system to create decent looking niche stores...

2. Absolutely! I also see the issue of too little content per page to be the biggest challenge. I will encourage my users to write texts for the tag pages (page that shows products for a specific tag) and thought about putting part of the product descriptions on the index page.
Any more suggestions on how to spice up the pages with more content are welcome!

3. Interesting. I didn't know Skimlinks (and Viglink probably as well) were widely used.
Yes, reviews could add a lot of content and value to the sites. It's difficult though, because the products are often long-tail and the transaction is made somewhere else, so user's will probably not come back to the ShowSpace storefront to write a review.

Thanks for your evaluation. It's pretty much the first honest feedback I got from an affiliate and it's what I need right now to get on the right track. :)
Thanks for your thoughtful answer. It contains a lot of things I have to think about. And no, it wasn't too tough, it is the kind of feedback I was looking for.

One clarification:

> A negative assessment of your boss? Whoa. That would piss me off, too. Why didn't you just talk to him?

Filling out the assessment form was a required preparation for the yearly staff appraisal. You fill it out, give it to your boss and then you discuss it with him at the meeting. Though the discussion never happened in my case.
Eh I wouldn't call Jobs a sole founder of Pixar. Ed Catmull and John Lasseter are really the founders of Pixar. They wouldn't have become what they became without Job's support, but to call him a "sole founder" is a little bit of a stretch.
Now, see, what a much more human and interesting way to express that. Contrast that with the wearisome hauteur of

> the have taught Siri nothing.

Not that having some jackass (me) be the arbiter of what's a nice way to say things is any improvement either, but I'm just saying.
I thought it was an iPhone ripoff? http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=3124131
That still doesn't explain why Android apps are overall not as good as compared to other platforms. The same common apps made by the same companies look very different on iOS, Android and WP7. And frequently, they look the worst on Android. This partly could be because they may not invest as much on Android versions as on iOS or just make quick ports but the platform design tools and the expectations of potential customers also come into play.

Since iOS and WP7 provide a built-in look and feel and UI philosopy, developers on a budget can still produce decent looking and behaving apps whereas in Android, it results in a functional but bare looking UI.

Case in point, a summer intern at work was tasked with making a basic notes mobile app. He picked Android because that's the phone his dad had and because the company wasn't really interested in the app except as a learning experience for the intern so they weren't interested in buying Mac hardware and developer license(a point in Android's favor). The final app lacked sorely in both design and functionality (more because he wasn't really experienced in coding). I asked him during the demo if he could use some of the Android API transitions and animations between the screens to jazz it up quicky (those make a big difference when presenting to non-technical folks). The reply was that there were none(I am just reporting what he said, I haven't taken a look at the APIs).

I do know that iOS and WP7 provide built-in animations and transitions. The point is that you have to go out of your way to make mediocre looking apps in iOS/WP7 and good looking apps in Android. Add to that the fact that Android didn't even have GPU acceleration for the UI till Honeycomb(a tablet only release). http://code.google.com/p/android/issues/detail?id=6914

Some companies prefer to roll their own custom look and feel (like the web.) But there's nothing in iOS and WP7 which prevents you from doing exactly that if you so wish, you're not beholden to the UI philosophy of the OS and can possibly make any design that you can in Android.
How meaningful is the term "minimal viable product" in this context (or any)?

Dropbox was designated from the beginning as an online storage tool. If they had not provided online storage when they started, no one would have used them. In that sense any advanced features were icing on the cake.

But I don't see this as being a critical part of Dropbox's success. They probably could have launched six months later with a more full featured product and still done well in the online storage market - simply by virtue of the strength of their product, team and strategy.

I'm a little tired of Eric Ries' simplistic axioms and consequent tendency to try to squeeze every use case into the mold of a supporting example.

To the extent that the term can be applied to any successful startup, how meaningful is it?
> I think the best thing about Ruby is the really fierce competition between implementations, which also reflects on the developers.

I don't see any fierce competition against implementations in Ruby. I see that in Javascript implementations (and in HTML engines), but not in Ruby.

I wish that was not the case, but for real competition to exist, and also be fierce, each implementation should push other implementations to go better, adopt its successful features, etc.

What I do see is just parallel development of different implementations.
Seems nice. But would love ot know it compares to Three.js[1]

[1] https://github.com/mrdoob/three.js/
At that point we've likely reached a point of abundance and can use the non-human labour we're using to provide a nice life for everyone. At that point the major metrics of the economy switch from something akin to GNP to Gross National Happiness.
What proportion of jobs in the United States are in programming or things analogous to programming?

What proportion of jobs in the United States are in agriculture, manufacturing, or things analogous to agriculture and manufacturing?

I think you may be suffering from short-sightedness, and assuming that the whole world looks a lot more like your corner of it than it does.
Messages: This is the implementation issue and one of rights anyway. If I send a message to a friend, what right do I have to delete it from their in-box or sent items if they save a copy of it? The deletion is a view deletion, not a physical deletion. A large number of deletes work this way (at least initially they go to an archive and then are either time removed or can be manually removed).

Data Security: Anyone who says your data secure is bluffing. Your data is never secure, and people need to stop thinking it is. It's out there. Backups, in transit, in DB, on file system. There is going to be whole. Think about it. Encrypted backups - they are never updated and eventually that encryption is going to be easy to crack. FB could be taking the answer to the extreme, but it is actually a smart answer.

Applications: FB doesn't develop them. It would be similar to MS guaranteeing apps written by third parties. It can't do it. Apple can't even do it. Linux doesn't do it.

FB has it's issues. It's constant update of privacy and not letting the user to choose to expose what data they want. But this is no different than any other system thrown out there.

FB isn't the only one creating shadow profiles (how many tracking websites are out there that companies use to determine site usage). Do you think they are really being transparent? Don't you think the shadow companies could build a shadow profile if they wanted to?

My issues with FB is that when they release new features or alter settings ability they make it the least secure possible.

If they are violating the laws, then they need to be reprimanded for it. But this just has the feel of the MS monopoly issue. Where people are only going after them because they are so big when others are out there doing it as well.
This is exactly what our startup does - facilitate the customer service process.

It's amazing how many people have started to use Twitter as their primary source of communication with the companies they do business with. Twitter enforces complaints to be succinct and to the point and since it's asynchronous, you can get on with your day, rather than being on hold with elevator music playing.

And like the author states, it's such an easy win for the company, even if the reply back is "Give me a call at XXX-XXX-XXXX and I'll help out" or "Send me an email at XXX@example.com".
I'd love to see that with better (okay, different) font rendering.
(We're all adults here. You can say "penis.")

It's not for the want of trying. There's ongoing research into a male pill, for instance, but it has yet to yield results.
I'm not sure that's true - it's definitely not true when you have limited funding and aren't profitable yet, but for the most part the tech world moves on and products have a finite, and generally pretty short, lifetime.
It would look good to be hired for that purpose, and win. Litigious lawyers can easily end up looking petulant, though; if the complaint is trivial or frivolous, the lawyer in question risks being regarded as a bottom feeder. It's better to bring something new to the table, like a winning argument that hasn't been employed before. Of course, I may not be so idealistic in a few years' time :-)
I use this language out of choice.
No one said it's an Apple ripoff, it's a Helvetica ripoff and not the first (famously).

It does epitomize the difference between Apple, which just goes and writes the check and Google, who seem intent on following Microsoft down a road of "embrace and extend".
Foursquare API Highlight: Plan, travel, share, repeat.
I'm not a big fan of "free" I have to say. :)

I think a low monthly fee could keep away most of the "bad" affiliates who maybe just got into the game and think they will get rich overnight without doing any work.

I haven't decided at all on this point, though, and will talk to a lot more ShowSpace beta users and affiliates in general before making a decision.
> The timeline for Python 3 adoption was always measured in years - not one, not two, but more.

Already a lot of YEARS have passed, not one, not two, but more. We're even in 3.2 for heaven's sake.

> Django has a Python 3 roadmap

Yeah, has had one for years. How is that going?

> The reports of death are grossly overstated.

The reports of movement in this front are grossly overstated too.
Mapping Global Corporate Control via Graph Theory
A lot of the growth of the last decade was driven by unsustainable private and public borrowing and spending. Most people in the political class are desperate to get the credit bubble-blowing machine running again, by having the state subsidize un-economic loans to un-creditworthy businesses and individuals.
With static languages, I find that testability is generally the best way to flush out poor design. In fact, I've argued before that TDD is a design-process, not a testing process. You can write code, then try to test it, if it's hard to test, your design is probably wrong.

Do it a couple times on medium size projects, and you don't need to write tests anymore (for that reason), since what works and what doesn't always seems to stick really well.

This isn't really true for dynamic languages, since they tend to be much easier to test (stub anything) and don't have all of boilerpoint crap that's necessary in the general purpose static languages folk uses(java/c#)

Not sure if that helps :)
Australian firm threatens man who noticed embarrassing security breach
Microsoft licensed Frutiger and Segoe for their mobile platform.
I've seen some small businesses go under because they haven't been paid on time. They borrow capital to pay their employees until their customer gets around to paying them...This especially occurs if the customer is big and the business that is servicing them is small.
Actually the people who had the wealth to build the non-human labor force become the rulers of our society. Their corporations will become the new governments and campaign against one another for control of resources. What happens at that point is anyone's guess.
One of the reasons I'd suggest Haskell to someone is exactly the community. I cannot see a question going unanswered on #haskell or at least 2-3 trying to help (doesn't matter if it's beginner-level or advanced). My experience has been the opposite.
Also - the author, @lindseyengh, doesn't even have a lot of Twitter followers (153), so it's not like she has the biggest stretch, either. At least on social media, it seems as though companies care about the little guys, too.
Amazon licenses PBS content -- will be at 12,000 instant video shows
Robert Kiyosaki (Video #6-) Live Below Your Means
E-Cig Pros And Cons
Hi Joey, I remember watching a screencast by you on the same topic (linked from HN) a few weeks ago. Is this a different video?
Found the link: http://thisismynext.com/2011/10/18/exclusive-matias-duarte-i...

This is the exact quote: “On Honeycomb we cheated, we cut the corner of all that smaller device support. That’s the sole reason we haven’t open sourced it.”
I generally feel (and this is generally due to my Austrian economic leanings) that talking about easier access to capital (through artificially lowering interest rates) is confusing the symptoms with the disease. We need to build up the capital in this country through saving and investment in companies, but that is not accomplished by just wishing it (through economic manipulation). We are in the midst of a massive hangover and drinking more won't fix that, it'll just make us worse alcoholics.

erm.. end rant
Turning Wordpress Into a Framework With MTV
Go Ahead, Cripple My Being
Don't forget magnet links: http://news.softpedia.com/news/BitTorrent-Magnet-Links-Expla...
"My friends make fun of me for making a retarded life decision."

there will always be people out there whom try to demean along the way.the reason being either they can't do that themselves so the easiest way out is to tell you to not go ahead so they will feel better. What's the risk for them in this instance? ZERO. Secretly praying hard you will not make it and take any action at all. Imagine how demotivating and powerful are those words just to make you not even start the journey.

Taking myself as an example,when I am in the process of building a new business from ground zero, the first thing these so call "friends" will say "why build this or that...blah blah..it's not possible" or "people will jump in and compete with you in the future" you get the drift. Despite all this, I pushed on and proved them its actually possible if we try hard enough, persistence is the key.

Push on,never say never,it's a tough and lonely journey as an entrepreneur especially by yourself, and I totally understand those very lows moments like yourself. It's only those who persevere through will look back after achieving the initial "impossible" and turning that into a possible.
It is not about absolute values, it is about trends. There's no question the tech sector is small, relatively speaking, but agriculture and manufacturing jobs are shrinking while technology-based jobs are growing.

For every job lost in agriculture and manufacturing, there is a new job in the tech industry. However, unless you are highly skilled, nobody will be interested in you. That is the problem. Farmers desperately want skilled people too, but they will hire anyone if they absolutely have to, simply because the job has to be done. In tech, if you can't find that perfect programmer, it doesn't matter all that much if it takes an additional six months to start the product.

Google claims they have approximately 2,000 open positions at all times. If those jobs had to be filled at all cost, they would have no trouble finding people. There are more than 2,000 unemployed people in the USA. The point is that they aren't really in need of filling those roles, it is more of a "nice to have" thing. They are waiting for great people.

My corner is agriculture and technology, so I get to see the vast differences in how people are hired.
The market app quality thing is mostly bunk. For a while, there was a period where the iPhone gold rush drove all the developers there. All the polished apps arrived first for iOS, and the Android market was filled with what amounted to bad clones of the known iPhone hits.

But that was (comparatively) long ago. All the "hit" apps are cross platform now. They generally look the same. Some are better on iOS (Facebook is a good example, though their recent Android releases have gotten a lot better) some on Android (Google Maps on the iPhone was a bad joke, last I checked, and there's no good competitor to use instead). The tier below that is mixed on both platforms, and there's plenty of junk to go around everywhere.

But that first year and a half still colors people's perceptions. So the canard gets trotted out every time someone wants to play the flame game.

And I tend to agree, actually, that Google has the cleaner and better core UI at this point. Apple wins on the "performance polish" issues: the devices are faster and better tuned, UI interaction is (often vastly) snappier. But I find the actual user experience to be better on Gingerbread than iOS 4 (haven't tried ICS or iOS 5 yet), frankly.
Sure, but they could try asking their users rather than peeking through a hole while they shower.
Ah, my mistake. Interesting, thanks!
Isn't that point confirming what I said, albeit confusing redundancy (availability of other systems as backup when GPS fails) with accuracy?