skysight-inc/HackerNews huggingface dataset:
Rule #1 of programming articles: Be wary of anyone who states "always" or "never" or "harmful" or "evil" with regards to a code construct/idiom/pattern.

What they're telling you, in effect, is that they know everything there is to know about X, and so you should trust their judgment and not think for yourself.

And in every case I've seen so far (including the famous goto debacle), they have merely focused on their pet code, ignoring the actual cases where the construct is useful (most often, they'll include trivial examples when the construct is meant to be used in complex situations), and this article is no exception.

When your argument becomes "we should throw this out because bad programmers use it badly", you have no argument.
The "Internet connected refrigerator that manages food for you" has been an example of this sort of thinking for at least 10 years, and it's no closer to being something that anyone actually wants.
This:

> We believe that coupling exceptions to a control
> structure, as in the try-catch-finally idiom,
> results in convoluted code.

Seems at odds with this:

f, err := os.Open("filename")
if err != nil {
// handle error
}

You're still using a control structure (if-statement) to handle the error.
Shipping real things for real money to real customers who themselves have real customers who are paying them money?
I don't follow that logic. Bad patent systems are bad systems, and it's good that MS argued against them. That doesn't make it "OK" for them to exploit the system they argued against. Bad behavior is still bad behavior.
Or it's like arguing that no one could run Apple and Pixar or SpaceX and Tesla.
What sort of performance could you expect by just sticking this in the wall of your house? In the winter, you've got cold air outside and you're already heating the inside. In summer, you've got hot air outside and you're cooling the inside. Does it matter which side is hot/cold?
Love it. One thought - have standardized CSS listed first. I type in "background" and get "-webkit-background-composite" as a first result. I'd probably want to see just "background" come up, followed by declarations less popular. Regardless of this minor issue, I'll be using this regularly. Thanks for this!
WHAT WORLD OF WARCRAFT TAUGHT ME ABOUT PROJECT MANAGEMENT
At my first company, I was thrown in the deep end of having to do cold calling, and it's amazing how simple pitches you can get away with if your product is actually something people see value in, and you sound genuinely interested in providing value.

I also think this is severely under-utilized. Especially since you can often get hold of people on the phone that you'd never get an e-mail reply from, if you're just friendly but persistent with assistants etc..

I'm in the same situation as you with respect to being an introvert. It was agonizing work, but it also drove a significant portion of our revenue. An alternative if you can afford it is to talk to a professional lead generation company (though be careful that they reflect your brand well - this is one of those areas where it definitively does not pay to skimp and end up with some cowboy). The downside of the latter even if you find a good agency is that nothing beats getting direct feedback on what is right and wrong with your pitch.
Beyond Exception Handling: Conditions and Restarts
Most of these only really took off once PARC shared them with other people and companies.
Lose Stomach Fat by avoiding Training Plateau
He should maybe buy an island and retire, since both Twitter (less and less used and not used by anyone under 30) and Square (with NFC on the horizon) can basically only go down.
I strongly believe (even observed) that the whole "teenage rebellion" is more or less a modern American phenomenon. At least in my experience of teenage Vietnamese (a few years ago, at least), as well as reading of various literature regarding this age group, the teenagers are not THAT bad. True, they are immature, but at least they obey the authority imposed upon them (aka families, schools, etc.). Rebellions do exist, and even at slightly higher rate than other age group, but they are still exceptions, not norms as how American parents and adults describe their children/younger siblings.

I think the whole ordeal is, more or less, the result of various views on how humans (children especially) should be educated:

* The whole hyper-freedom-worshiping culture (even one's freedom will result in destruction of the society and one's future) removes any restriction on behaviors of teenagers, and prevent any effective discipline/self-control training for a young child

* The uniquely-me-esteem-inflation movement destroys any incentive to obey (or even pay attention to) advices/authority of adults, who are clearly wiser and more mature. After all, if everyone is completely unique, why listen?

* The no-child-left-behind-but-no-pressure (in conjunction with the inflation above) ideology results in an education system that is so easy and low-pressure that teenagers have way too much time and energy left in their hands. Oh, and if you fail, that's fine, you are unique either way, it's just you ain't fit to the current system (and we will lower the expectation so you will pass).

All in all, American teenagers receive insufficient training (in discipline/self-control), have absolutely no incentive to listen to anyone, are under no pressure and challenging expectation, but possess obscene amount of free time.

And you blame THEM for screwing up.
He addresses scale but only scaling up. What he neglects to realize is that AdWords et al are elastic, if I want to get 10x impressions over the weekend I can do that. With cold calling, not so much...
Ten recent algorithm changes
Lisps are unique in their lack of syntax. Not fit for comparison to any other type of language. When you use a lisp language you know exactly what you're buying into.
Strange Loop 2011 Languages Panel
World's First ARM-Based CPU/GPU Hybrid Supercomputer
Google+ and Diaspora look very similar…
Scripting the cold call and iterating on it like it was a Google Adword ad is such a simple idea, but it had never occurred to me.

This is a great, great post, one of the more useful things that's hit HN in the past few months. I don't know what it is about the Smart Bear blog, but man, it's one of the only things that hits HN regularly that I find myself sharing with non-HN people.

I would love some more discussion about better cold-call call to actions. I feel like my particular market, while way better addressed by calls than Adword ads, already has its hackles raised on the prospect of being linked to a blog. What else has worked for people?
Boy s Ties Can Be Fashionable
3 Reasons Why You Should Own a Blog.
There are several sports cars which offer a more expensive version with fewer features (making it lighter/faster).
Isn't the fact that their funding comes disproportionately from Microsoft (I'm just assuming you're right, obviously I don't have numbers) and argument for the MPEG-LA being "dominated" by Microsoft? They need MSFT more than it needs them.
David start-up vs industry Goliath
I'm sure many of you here used to work for some larger company before going on your own. I used to work for a 'larger' company myself too before they screwed me over; I was "just a hacker" at the time so none of them took me really seriously.

Now it's payback time: I've been working (and still am, ofc) on a start-up that will compete directly with them. The product itself is light years ahead so I have no doubt it'll get a great percentage of the Goliaths' sales. The questions I can come up with would be:

1. how to use Goliaths' strengths and weaknesses as my own advantages?
I've read on this topic lately but still really want to hear fellow hackers' opinions.

2. how to "push" my start-up with practically no funding in a 2nd world country?
I'm not looking for funding, going the 37signals way on this one. Except for the idea being super awesome and packaged in the simplest interface possible, I pretty much rely on word of mouth and SEO. Ok, and social media (which I have no experience with). Is there a "pushing your start-up for dummies" book or blog?
It depends what you're trying to process. Keep in mind Dwolla is it's own network. It doesn't process VISA/MAST/ other like Stripe. In theory Dwolla is another payment form that could easily be built into Stripe but the two do very different things.

Using both obviously gives you the ability to do cc/debit transactions for those who want and have the upside of when someone pays using Dwolla.
Android 4.0 NDK version 7 for Windows, Mac and Linux Released
Freelance progression: When was your last review?
Insidious Bugs or: How I Stopped Worrying and Learned to Love Exceptions
counter-point to the interesting article that try/catch is an anti-pattern https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=3233526
He has accomplished a lot, and we all try to stand on the shoulders of giants.
Time and time again I’ve read people lauding “The New Microsoft,” the company that created XBox and Mango, the company that no longer behaves like the old, nasty monopolist of old. Such plaudits remind me of someone who is dating a wonderful man who has been divorced four times, but this time it’s going to be different.
You can train a few people and pay them per conversion. It's easy to get a list of numbers from a service like Hoover's for free at your local library.
S. Brin, L. Page "The anatomy of a large-scale hypertextual Web search engine"
And Ticonderoga-class warships...

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/USS_Yorktown_(CG-48)
If someone is at that stage where you are contemplating this, here is a tip....just do it. By that I mean commit suicide of your _current_ life, not of life. Most of what weights someone down are the fears, struggles, embarrassment, your peer groups, jobs, etc. If you can't find a way through it, just leave it. Give all your stuff away, give away your money, give up your computer, leave your friends and family, pack a backback, travel to Africa, resign your life to helping others. Think of it as you ended your life and now you're just a servant to others. You don't have any aspirations of success, any ladders to climb, just live to help others.

Go without any plans, any future, just go and see what happens. You'll be free. It may be dangerous, you might not make it, but if your other choice was death the day before, then everything now is just gravy anyways. Don't worry about it.

This may sound silly and simple and extreme, but if you _are_ at that stage then this should be your stop gap. From now on when you're in that dark spot just think about when you're going to pull the trigger on this, not on yourself.

Of course there are lots of things you can do before it comes to this, but if you're past that, just leave your current life totally.
Well...VenMo is competition and waives the transaction fee - so there's definitely competition there.

I still think Square is superior, though.
Where do I go for the best online real estate classes
Amazon: Kindle Fire shipping today, a day early
Here's an example from our colleagues at Google (WebRTC):

//how many frames should have been received since the last

// update if too many have been dropped or there have been

// big delays won't allow this reduction may no longer need

// the send_ts_diff here

num_pkts_expected = (int)(((float)(arr_ts -

bwest_str->last_update_ts) * 1000.0f /(float) FS) /

(float)frame_length);

Once meant something to somebody. Now its gibberish. Even the variable mentioned is no longer in the code.
Yeah, I never understood the purpose of anti-virus software. If you have a vulnerability that would allow a virus to make its way onto the machine enough for a virus scanner to find the virus, someone will use that same vulnerability to access your system in a way that a virus scanner will not protect you.
Nice post.

I do the same for "accessories" - for e.g if I buy a desk and assemble it - I then take a zip-lock bag, put in the wrenches, extra screws, fasteners, what-have-you, and tape it to the desk where you can't see it (usually on the back, or bottom if possible).

I do this for almost everything I own - I even tape the instruction manuals to the back of appliances.

This way, I don't have random items floating around the apartment, and I know if I need to fix, replace, or dissemble anything, I know I don't have to hunt around.

I guess this is an extension of jgrahamc's idea - take pictures as you assemble, fix, dismantle stuff, and put them in the zip-lock bag. Saved me endless head-scratching in the past.
>Isn't the fact that their funding comes disproportionately from Microsoft

I never stated that their revenue comes disproportionately from Microsoft. What I stated was that Microsoft pays them more than what Microsoft gets from it for Microsoft patents in the pool, which is a completely different thing.
It's because there isn't much point. Most Lisps use a tagging scheme like:

00 = Integer
01 = Pointer

With 00 as the integer tag, integer addition and subtraction can be done directly without masking off the tags. Multiplication and division need the tags masked, but are slow anyway. The tag can also be stripped off for free on any architecture that offers BASE + OFFSET addressing (just subtract 1 from the desired constant offset).
For some reason, his Foundation interview made me a fan. Cant call it. He just seemed in control

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DQy_HFHOZug
I am also Indian. And I have never considered him Indian just because he was born in India. He moved away very early in his life and became an American citizen in 1966. The only mention of India in the article is once in the 1st para. So, for me, he was American in all significant aspects.
I guess we would have to define "real" now.
Except advertisers. Remember, it's still Google.
Imagine a cyclist riding into someone's leg with one of these wheels vs. a spoked wheel.
I think you unfairly characterize a lot of Windows AV. Yeah, they're not perfect - if you're browsing dodgy sites, downloading tons of cracks, and clicking on every link, there's no application on Earth that can stop you from getting infected.

However, an AV is pretty good at detecting stuff that you may get exposed to otherwise - exploits can pwn your Windows computer without you even knowing, and sometimes even run off legit ad networks. NoScript / AdBlock, running Google Chrome, and practicing safe browsing can help, but an AV is a good additional layer.

I guess my point is - an AV is NOT a panacea, but it should be used as an additional layer of defence.
Mathematics as the raw material for art
This is why I never buy first generation hardware/software. There are always bugs and whatnot. However, I did make an exception for the Fire. I thought that they would surely have a top notch book reading app. I guess I was wrong.

I mostly will use the Fire for book reading, watching videos, and surfing the web. I was hoping that these things could be done quite well and am disappointed to hear about the issues with the Fire.

I don't own an Android device and the article makes it seem like the issues described with the Fire are indicative on all Android devices. Is this really the case?

I have played around with all the major tablet devices and none of them comes close to have as nice an experience as the iPad. But at $199 (with no tax) I figured the Fire couldn't be so bad as to have buyer's remorse. I don't think I will have buyer's remorse but I was hoping for a more stellar user experience.
People can choose the skills they acquire.
The revelation you're dancing around is that advertising, at least 98% of it, is based on a fundamentally broken concept: trying to sell something to someone who would probably be better off not buying it.

Advertising currently works by slapping the largest number of random people and making them decide whether buying the product is a good decision. "Evil" advertisers try to deceive potential customers and be intrusive, while "good" advertisers try to selectively target and give potential customers tools and info to accurately judge the product. Those are steps, but the system is still broken.

What Jason is hovering around is that the producer has as much theoretical responsibility in the customer-business interaction as the customer does. All human interaction must in principle be voluntary, and the winners are those businesses who take the basic interaction between two people and scale it upwards. YOU are just as responsible for finding the customers as the customers are for finding the product. That is the model the industry must adapt to, because people, especially intelligent people, are resistant to advertisements. And why shouldn't they be? Someone who tries to convince you to make a bad financial decision deserves an equal amount of scorn regardless of whether they know enough about you to judge whether you should buy it. If they do know, then they're malicious liars. If they don't, they're insulting you by saying their time is worth more than yours.

Advertising is broken. You fix it by taking equal responsibility by only attempting to sell to people for whom you expect the sale to be mutually beneficial. It may be uncomfortable to think about, but looked at objectively, advertising as a whole is a long stream of invitations for people to screw themselves over and the unsaid assumption that it's the buyer's responsibility to make sure the raft they get on isn't the one going over the cliff. That is broken. Fix it.
pfft... All I see in the article are 8 unproductive hours every day. Research has shown that humans really don't need 8hrs sleep to work at their optimal best and 4-5 hrs of sleep should be more than enough. He could use those extra 4 hrs every to further develop the companies or even better try launch another startup on the side. Also walking 2 blocks every day between the two companies? That seems a waste of time which should be spent working, I know it doesn't sound much but walking two block every day adds up as a ton of wasted time. He should iron that inefficiency out of his schedule by having a common office for both jobs and using skype if he really needs to talk to someone. Also taking weekends off? Don't even get me started on that.
One of the fundamental flaws of capitalism that has collapsed the system is unbridled speculation...These speculators add little value...and are financed by government handouts.

Capitalism is flawed because the government robs Peter to pay Paul?

I really wish the people criticizing capitalism would put a small effort into learning what capitalism is.
How to generate free MLM leads
hmm, it also mentions completely disabling 3rd party software sources, and not downloading stupid things from forums.

If you're developing for android, you're going to install your own APKs from sd card. Even if you "don't install other apps" that way, you're still "leaving the vector open" by leaving the system setting on, apparently?

Also, if you want to upgrade the OS or kernel on some of the cheaper phones, you'll need to use cyanogenmod, and usually a custom version hacked together by randomers on forums. My (cheap, spare) droid runs a bootloader and OS which is the result of collaboration between a Chinese guy, a British guy and other developers from "the internet". You do have to join the forums, talk to people a bit, and read up on the feedback these users get when they post new ROMs though, I'll admit...

Maybe I'll install one of these free AV apps and see if they can find anything! :)
Samsung won’t try to block iPhone 4S sales in South Korea
American (internet) Censorship Day - Nov 16, 2011
HN has a certain disdain for internet petitions. What does in think about action campaigns like this?
My Reasons for Leaving .NET
Malha��o sem impacto
Inside iPrep Blended Public School: Bean bags & Dance Dance Revolution [video]
HN has a certain disdain for internet petitions. What does in think about action campaigns like this?
YouTube pays pounds for this Special Video…….
I'm sure there are going to be a lot of iPad comparisons, as in this article. There is an obvious reason for them, but I feel the fact the Fire is less than half the price of the cheapest iPad 2 ($200 vs $500) must be kept in mind.

Amazon obviously had to compromise, and my first impressions are they have done a good job. I'm sure if they had aimed for an iPad-like price point, they could have hit iPad-like quality.
> Making a Windows Mobile phone only teaches you how not to make a smartphone. Not to say it's not valuable knowledge.

I don't follow. Could you elaborate for me?
>Making a Windows Mobile phone only teaches you how not to make a smartphone. Not to say it's not valuable knowledge.

You seem to have no idea how hard it is to make mobile hardware. There's a ton of work involved including having to make arrangements with the suppliers, sourcing components,etc. Being a profitable incumbent is a huge advantage compared to a newcomer.
I was astonished when so many people on the HN thread discussing the viruses on "the Predator system" couldn't distinguish between flight critical software and everything else. Lots of comments along the lines of "what do they expect, letting Windows fly an airplane" and so on. There seems to be similiar confusion here.
When I wrote "the iOS-like springboard app launcher that appeared in Lion", I was referring to Launchpad.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Launchpad_%28Mac_OS_X%29
How to Create Your Dream Store Online Review of  eCommerce Tool
From 2007: Google Android Just a Press Release, Says Ballmer
Now all we need is a mouse capture API to make first person games.
Camere spion
Urmărirea un aparat de fotografiat spion, cum să lucraţi cu camere spion. Pentru a păstra un ochi pe unde ar trebui.
What do you mean by a similar page? A settings page? Settings pages aren't usually visually attractive, they are utilitarian; but this one is (at least to me) offensively ugly. For example, I count 6 different shades of blue used on this page, including a wallpaper design... to me this has a very old look to it.
Let's use priming to improve our lives
Remotely Opening Prison Doors
There might be a good explanation here for the emotional gains you get from hanging art and other decorations as well.
Overexposed? Artist Fills Room With 24 Hours of Flickr Photos
And waste the energy you used (via a furnace or air conditioner) to create that temperature gradient in the first place?
"Zhitomirskiy committed suicide, a source close to the company confirmed to CNNMoney."

http://money.cnn.com/2011/11/14/technology/diaspora_cofounde...
Wired defines Post-PC at the same time it introduces the term

> the post-PC era—in which the desktop is replaced by lean, portable, gesture-driven tablets

They also define post-web:

> in which our devices are simply a means for us to directly connect with the goodies in someone’s data center.

though I'll admit the latter definition is lame, the first one is reasonable.
Screens simulated. Sequences shortened.

Live tiles look like an interesting way to see a limited view of the data or activity available within an application. They seem to reduce the number of application targets to 8 (or fewer if the application wants more than one square).
Got any recommendations for a lead generation company?
To me, Lion really cemented the fact that the end goal of Mac OS is to make an invisible OS that requires zero tinkering just like iOS. Everyone should be able to use it and no one should have to access the file system.

This transitional period poses a huge problem for Apple and looks to be the cause of most complaints I've seen. What are they going to do about the power users who were their early adopters? Is an 'admin' or 'power user' mode appropriate?