skysight-inc/HackerNews huggingface dataset:
Not everyone's a product visionary, but you need a way to manifest your vision to get everyone on board or rally the troops. Sometimes it's an email, presentation, speech, or prototype. For a company with over 100 corporate executives listed and over 10,000 employees attending its global sales conference, it's not unreasonable for Microsoft to be using video. Large orgs are as much about politics as they are about products, and you need to champion your idea to others.
Historically it's been a strength. Apple's resurgence is a pretty recent thing, and most hardware+software companies have not done well. Look at Sun and see how well the hardware+software model worked for them. For that matter, look at Android, which is following the software-only model and has overtaken the iPhone in most areas now.
They're not really set up for taking external contributions, but there's nothing stopping you from making videos and putting them on YouTube. If you pick a subject and do it better than anyone else, you will have made a valuable contribution.

I know that's not as cool as contributing to Khan Academy, and makes it harder to get an audience, but it's something you can do at any time, without asking permission from anyone.
Very cool, Joe! The JVM and hot-upgrade Erlang stuff looks especially nice.

Any reason this can't just turn into a pull request for Opscode's application cookbook though?
Display Density is adjustable when clicking the gear icon button in the upper right for me. I keep it cozy, too.
Except from the White House's point of view, because they get to harvest your email address.
Sal is amazing. He is a great teacher, and his wealth of knowledge is vast. Unfortunately even sal, with his genius, is going to start running up against some curbs. I think it would be great if he brought on just a few more world class teachers to continue his model.
Yet another Facebook alternative? Seriousely? I'm all for competition, but between diaspora, G+, unthink, now this ...
Squiz switched to distributing a free VM for the trial and production versions of their CMS: http://squiz.com.au/products/squiz-cms

(Previous versions were a tarball of PHP code and a lot of brittle install scripts.)
Do you need a Business
Reminds me of Plaxo...
If you're interested in checking out RAVN, you can use invite code "HACKERNEWS". Just for the HN community.
thank you :-)
(stupid me)
Given the "Project Moonshot" bit, I'd imagine it's from the Redstone rockets that launched the Mercury astronauts into space.
I've looked through this code - I have several such needs for packaging PHP dependencies - and have decided against using it for several reasons:

- Like most code coming from the Symfony community, it is built Java-style. Not a bad thing, but many things, such as dependency checking or version management, can be done in much simpler ways with less code

- PHP 5.3 only. Thanks, but no thanks. I know everyone is in a rush to promote 5.3, but I feel as though it can be done in such a way as to gracefully degrade and support older versions of PHP quite easily.

- Has dependencies on Symfony projects. That is a great way to have other frameworks adopt your tools! I'm sure this is going away, especially if they want framework-wide support.

That said, I'm jealous. I've been working on something similar for a few months in private and this is already on Github. If they can iron out my above issues, I'll be happy.
(1) America Invents improves the patent office's efficiency at awarding patents and switches the U.S. from first-to-invent to first-to-file. IMO, both will be a boon to trolls.

(2) The action item is the title of the petition.

(3) Government branches don't operate in silos. When the President demands something from congress and pushes it hard enough, he usually gets something on his desk.

It's a petition, not a bill. I want my President to act, not pretend that he can't do anything about it. He's the one who lit a fire under Congress and called out obstructing members by name to pass healthcare reform. I've relentlessly contacted all my representatives and senators, but congress does nothing without pressure.
This news comes just hours after I finished installing Gitorious on my company's own server. I'm glad I went through that trouble because $5k is crazy for a startup to pay for a self-hosted git web interface.

Heck, I'll install your own Gitorious on Rackspace Cloud Server for $99 for anyone who requests. Host your own code.
I really don't think you'd need comments in the package file, but that's not why we picked JSON.

JSON was nice and easy because it's provided natively by PHP, unlike Yaml. Also we were inspired quite a bit by NPM, and I guess that played a role, implicitly.

Also, it is a fact that every format has haters, and we couldn't have picked something that makes everyone happy. So we picked one, and I'm sure people will be able to live with it.

Now I do recognize the fact that some people may not be used to JSON (though I find it quite awkward - even narrow-minded - for web devs), and for that reason I added some syntax checks to warn users of common mistakes in their JSON file, because while PHP has native support, all the info you get from it for malformed JSON is a null return value and "Syntax error" in json_last_error(). We also plan to have an init command that will allow you to build a package file interactively.
Unthink: an all-in-one social media platform
It has a very low barrier to entry, and it's not a bad first language. Also, while this has nothing to do with JavaScript per se, I'm reluctant to bet against John Resig.
I agree with you 100%, if you're learning to program on your own.

I disagree 100%, if you're talking about a college curriculum. The intro class at my university [1] used C, and I'm incredibly grateful. If I hadn't been forced to grok pointers and malloc, I'm not sure I ever would have (I haven't done any C programming since then). But even though I'm not writing C directly, knowing how things work at a lower level has helped me understand all sorts of concepts in higher-level languages.

[1] http://cs50.tv
I was at the Microsoft office in Cambridge (MA, US) the other day, and they had a Surface there. It was much the same; a neat toy, but ultimately a distraction. They spent serious engineering resources on it, and it amounts to something that will sell a handful for companies to put in lobbies as a something fun to play with. Given the wear patterns on it, it looked like it was mostly used for playing checkers.

Now, the Surface could actually be a neat product. If it were affordable enough for any small office, or for people to use in their home, it would probably sell well. If they actually developed only one tablet platform, that scaled up from their phones to the Surface with only minor modifications to UI, they'd have a serious contender for a touch based platform.

But with something that's just a toy for companies with extra money to spend entertaining their guests, with its own APIs so that software isn't portable between it and other products, and no real significant tablet offerings to fill in the gap between the phone and the Surface, it just doesn't make that much sense. I doubt that they can be making much money on it.
'Privacy' is NOT a killer app.

Unfortunately, the reality is most people using Facebook do not care so much about privacy as the media wants you to believe If they did, they would not be putting a hundred pictures of 'last night' up on Facebook to show their hundreds of friends which is one 'share' away

Build a great product. It is all that matters.

The 'our Facebook' link at the bottom explains why you cannot beat facebook at its game.
This looks really cool. I've recently been similarly inspired by watching Node.js guys (Substack in particular) and the penchant for very targeted re-usable components.

The strength of PHP is that there's so much code already written that monolithic frameworks are a step backwards, but a good package distribution system is required for this to work.

I recently released a little front controller style microframework that has a default autoloader with a simple way to register your own:

https://github.com/iaindooley/RocketSled

and an associated package manager that basically just has a list of github repos and a config file which specifies dependencies:

https://github.com/iaindooley/RocketPack

Since I don't want to constrain myself to using only namespaced code or one particular autoload implementation I won't be using Composer just yet (indeed I'm an advocate of a "lazy" namespacing policy) but I look forward to following the project's progress via github.

My goal is to use tools that don't "have an opinion" - that allow me to use whatever is going to get the job done most quickly. Things like coding standards, policies and aesthetics are moot when it comes to delivering code on the day, especially if your code is highly modular and compartmentalised.
I like what you're saying.

However, you're not answering your comment's grandparent: how to avoid, cope with, or assume away the concern that a super-high-tech economy will leave unemployed people who aren't intellectually sophisticated enough to participate.
The interface on the app is really really beautiful, I'm between meals so haven't tried out the snapping feature, but just wasted like 30 min rating other people's dishes. The fit or fat interaction design is gorgeous.
HTC Tops Smartphone Sales
I guess that I taught myself programming from a book makes me a kind of super genius? Or maybe frontal teaching simply is not the right way to teach programming?
In my head, I reserve the word "let" for immutable bindings. Or at least local bindings that people probably aren't going to mutate. I read it as "x equals five".

So, between three of us, we saw that simple line of code in three different ways. I wonder what other people see in more complicated code.
The Tablet That Refuses to Die (HP Touchpad "Zombie Award")
Is it even legal to operate a business in Los Altos Hills?
Prepare a magic wedding moment | My Wedding Dream
Show HN: My Node book
> Why ask arguably the most successful businessman in history for his opinion?

In this specific case, I side with the stated opinion of one of the most admired businessmen of all time, Steve Jobs. Bill Gates just has no taste.

After reading this description of the Courier, I don't know why even bothering Gates with this.

edit: another explanation could be blame shifting. Ballmer knows his tenure has not been exactly brilliant and canceling a project that could be (it would be portrayed as that, if convenient) the iPad killer Microsoft's board dreams about would end up being ammunition against Ballmer in any future conflict. By delegating this decision to Gates, Ballmer is safe. Killing the Courier was the right thing, but Ballmer needed bigger balls than his own to kill it.
using a search dropdown just adds those operators automatically, so manual typing should work exactly the same
I actually like having config files as PHP - that way you can not only include comments but hack in logic if you ever have to.
Regarding Substack code, I've made a PHP implementation of the DNode protocol: https://github.com/bergie/dnode-php

With this you could actually call Node.js code from your PHP apps.

And yeah, php-dnode is available on Composer :-) http://packagist.org/packages/dnode/dnode
So I have to sign up for your service before I find out what it does? I can't find any details at all outside the media coverage, and if I'm gonna sign up to turn my financial affairs into a game I'm gonna want to know what the rules are first.

edit: Wait, I found https://www.saveup.com/about/faq
Industry expertise is certainly an advantage and attractive to investors, but by no means is a prerequisite for success. There are lots of other very important and influential factors in a startup's success other than your industry background.

For example, I actually interned at an analytics startup in the facebook gaming space (they now sell an analytics suite to game developers). The company originally started out producing god knows what hardware devices, then transitioned to making apps for Facebook. In the midst of making apps, they found that there was a need for a different type of analytics system (traditional web analytics models are pageview centric, and don't work well with "social", which is now regarded as user/cohorted user class centric). So once again they pivoted and developed an analytics platform for the facebook platform.

I don't believe anyone on the core team had any analytics experience, but they were all super smart and ambitious. It was a market and timing opportunity, and they got started by solving a problem they themselves faced on a daily basis.
By my calculations the Redstone config has 6400 cores and the traditional one has 4800 cores. But discussing such vague claims is pretty pointless anyway.
Affordable Care Act Eroded by Skyrocketing Prescription Costs
I think the GP's point still stands. Smart companies will have an advantage recruiting these engineers, because they have less competition, and so they will win. (Corollary: the quality of the team is the strongest predictor of success).

I agree. Anyone who would hire a worse employee because they don't like the other's {race,color,nationality,gender,sexual preference,...} is an idiot, and I wouldn't bet on their success.

That said, we definitely need some short term solutions too. "Evolution" isn't particularly helpful to those being discriminated against right now.
the built-in browser is also getting better with every release.
I wonder how many people saw the video and wanted to make a WoW/Aggro/Leeroooy related comment but held back afraid of being downvoted.
Salesforce.com
Senior Innovation Developer

I work on a very special team in Product Marketing. We build some demonstrations and prototypes that showcase our upcoming technologies. The team is small and we are looking for a senior developer that will help us streamline our development processes and help us build really cool demos.

This job is not for everyone. We operate very much like a startup and have lots of space for innovation. Because we are not within R&D we don't have to deal with red tape, bureaucracy, or politics. It's a cool gig...you will get to travel a few times a year.

Places we go: London, Paris, New York, Munich, Tokyo, Sydney, Singapore, Boston, Las Vegas, and more...

Our headquarters is located in San Francisco near the Ferry Building.

Check out the job listing here: http://careers.force.com/jobs/ts2__JobDetails?jobId=a1k70000...

Send me a message if you are interested.
reza.bnd@gmail.com
> However constantly changing any user interface is a fantastic way to make customers furious when they can no longer find things and have to stop to adapt, over and over.

Can you explain what you mean by "constantly changing"? It's clear that Google is going through a big visual refresh and rolling all of it's products over to one new unified design, but that's something that hasn't been done in a long time, it's not a constant state of significant change.

> Why not allow the old look to function for years instead of weeks or months. There is no way you are going to convince me google doesn't have the resources to do that, it's not a massive internal change, it's a visual layer.

Years is a long time for Google to have to hold onto old code and support both versions (as well as the mechanisms to allow the both to exist). And as you say, it's "just" a visual change, for most users it shouldn't be too difficult to adapt to. And I'm sure that if you had specific complaints about its usability, the team at Google working on this would be happy to hear from you.
Good analysis, but why production on a dedicated server and development on PaaS? Intuitively, I would do it the other way around, to make sure I don't have to do the admin on a production system (source of failure) and can scale the production system with the click of a button (which I'm happy to pay slightly more on). Where is my mind going wrong? ;)
One unmentioned feature I loved is the ability to hide the chat and "invite" sidebars. On the lower left corner there's two unobtrusive buttons to toggle chat and invite (does anyone use that?) visibility.

I'm still waiting for a UI where I can just drag the components I need, a la browser's toolbars.
Why would it matter how Composer itself is built? It is just a tool you use to manage your dependencies and install your project. And all of it comes as a single phar.

$ wget http://getcomposer.org/composer.phar
$ php composer.phar install

Done.
IPad interactive app WizzyBoard wins $50,000 innovation prize
There was more outcry than just the petition. Lots of people emailed in, tweeted, whatever.

The official "OK, we're not killing profiles" message does not address the petition directly:
http://blog.netflix.com/2008/06/profiles-feature-not-going-a...
Google Maps to charge for heavy usage
Zuckerberg downplays Silicon Valley’s start-up status
- Java-style. You don't like it, I'd argue it's not Java-style, but I know what you mean. I don't think this is worth debating much, it's just opinions :)

- PHP 5.3. Yes. 5.2 has been EOL for almost 1 year now (http://www.php.net/archive/2010.php#id2010-12-16-1), 5.4 is coming fast. I don't mean to be harsh but you will have to get over this one. ZF2, Symfony2, Flow3 are built on 5.3. Drupal8 will be too. Typo3 v5 will be.

- Dependencies on Symfony Components. We are trying to build a package manager here. Something that shold help and promote code re-use, and you would like us to avoid re-using code in the process? I think this is missing the point. Also, you have to realize that most end users will never have to see that, since they will only interact with the "binary" composer.phar file.

I sincerely hope you join the effort.
I also had to close Tasks in bottom right corner, to see a button to switch to new design.
I understand your initial reaction, but you obviously haven't read enough of this massive five-part essay to have an informed opinion. It elaborates a theory of power politics which, in my experience, has immense explanatory power.

The terms "sociopath," "clueless," or "loser" are selected for their efficiency, and are not value judgments.
I'd appreciate named prefixes for these news/links, eg. "David Brooks: The Wrong Inequality".
New York City

Scholastic (the children's book publisher)

- Game Design & Production Intern

- Game Art Intern

Both are six month paid internships. If you're in school, we're happy to work with you to set up academic credit. Full time preferred, but part time is possible as well.

gbrown@scholastic.com
Code School (i.e. Rails for Zombies) is a combination of the two! It's not quite what you're hoping for, though (it's always Instruction then Practice, rather than giving you the option to mix it up).
"A Facebook alternative"... Really?

"We don't expect Anybeat to replace Facebook" - http://www.anybeat.com/about
At the very least I thought the design in the video was pretty cool (the fonts, colors and what not on the various screens). I haven't followed Mango or whatever, so I am not sure if that was just an interpolation of the Mango theme or something new. Also, I totally suck at design, so I am easily awestruck by people who can do it.

In any case, I wouldn't think too much about it. MS is a really big company, and they probably pay for something like that from their pocket change. Whatever.

Also I like reading science fiction, and isn't a video like that also a kind of science fiction?

I didn't think the video was "creepy", but it made me think: it showed essentially how people are being pushed from location to location by their devices. I guess that is an interpolation of the life of office workers today, who are dominated by Outlook. But it struck me that in the end humans might become merely processes executing the program their devices and management software sets up for them. I doubt that is what humans really desire, so I suppose MS got it wrong in the video. But it was sufficient to evoke some thoughts.
Sounds interesting, any url I can go to?
Ant-trust has been on the books so long that the truly ominous examples are simply beyond the pale. For example, Verizon buying out cable companies then locking out Netflix. Or the cellphone providers colluding to divide the market amongst themselves, granting each a safe market share. Level 3 making demands on all of them after buying out some content. Etc.

Generally, though, you're going to be SOL on government regulation as technology's main problem. There really isn't much, especially vis-a-vis more lucrative industries like oil. Wal-Mart probably has more regulatory compliance issues than the entire tech world.
I'm working on an app that automatically saves you money per click on Adwords and adCenter
We used to do that with Midgard. Just like embedding in logic into your templates, it gives you a lot of flexibility but ultimately ends up with you or your users shooting yourself into the foot.

For reference, here is one of the old, PHP-based config files we have:
http://trac.midgard-project.org/browser/branches/ragnaroek/m...
How I Beat the Computer in Chess (game included)
At the same time, I find it to be a lot easier on the eyes. As a "power user" spending a lot of my day staring at my inbox, I like this a lot better. Pretty soon all of the buttons will be second-nature anyway.
Oh and needless to say we pay really well and have incredible perks. Here are some that I like:

-401k match
-ESPP
-Aetna PPO
-Aetna Dental
-VSP (new glasses/contacts EVERY year)
-$100/mo fitness reimbursement
-iPhone reimbursement ($80/mo)
-Life insurance coverage

Yah not bad right? And you get to move out of Man Jose? BOMB!
Not to mention keyboard shortcuts! Navigating with my keyboard seriously saves me tons of time everyday.
FAQ on Federal Race and Ethnicity Regulations for College Admission
It's not an easy problem to solve, and certainly not something I could come up with a reasonable answer to in short order...

One additional wrinkle will be the tendency of the poor to have more children than the rich, exacerbating the jobs-to-people ratio problem.
Oh cool! I was interested in dnode-php, you've already done all the work :)

/me follows
I fail to see why you think it's a perfect response. Patents exists to stimulate inventors by protecting fruits of their labour from trivial copying. What the ease of copying has got anything to do with the patent system being broken?
PHP config files are much like PHP templates. It sounds handy to be able to do the odd quick hack in there, but on large scale project it always ends up as a gigantic mess in my experience. Quick hack over quick hack, it slowly turns into an unreadable maze of possibilities.

That being said, for packages I really don't think this applies, because it's static declarative information, I can't imagine why you would need "quick hacks" adding logic to that.
This is neat :)

I spent a lot of years in php, and the lack of a serious code-sharing story was certainly a pain point.

Using JSON (and being strict about it) is a good idea. If people really want to use Yaml, then they can write a composer.yaml, and have a build step that dumps it into composer.json. Courier does this for node projects that want to write their package metadata in coffeescript.
Jesus you expected a human to produce that file??? No wonder they shot themselves in the foot! My solution to that wouldn't be a different config format, but less config.
I did this last year and wasn't really impressed (sorry). What have you improved in the last 12 months?

[Edit] Sorry that came over very negatively. I thought the idea was good and I'd be keen to go again if I knew there were improvements.
Sports Betting System Takes Shot At Facebook Games