skysight-inc/HackerNews huggingface dataset:
I don't get the Unity hate. Sure, it's nowhere near as polished as the traditional Gnome desktop, but everything cool and new started out as something crappy and new. If you don't like watching the sausage get made, wait for the LTS releases. Or just turn Unity off, the option's still there.

I have a lot of time for Shuttleworth and the Ubuntu crew. Here's the rest of the "if you don't like it, don't use it" quote mentioned in the article: "If there is selfishness here, it's selfishness on the part of people who DEMAND attention and offer no constructive solution. Nobody has a right to expect someone else to devote their time to a mission in which they have no interest."

"Devote their time to a mission" - isn't that a great description of Open Source at it's best? Not playing with a weekend project, trying to impress pundits, or making a super friendly don't-offend-anyone party. A mission that people devote their time to.

Will it work? I have no idea, but I hope so. Ubuntu didn't become the most popular distro by having the best wallpaper. They've been making hard decisions and pissing people off since 2004. To anyone who considers Unity a death knell, I'd ask you to estimate how many projects are killed by innovating too much when people want stability, and compare it to how many projects die a slow, apathetic death because they've been standing still while the rest of the world moves on.
Programming in CoffeeScript Book Draft
Shameless plug: http://ideashower.posterous.com (these are just pure ideas / starting-points, no thought given to business plans whatsoever)
Show HN: New Roundtable Homepage
Awesome - I ended up writing a markdown extension for highlight.js (also OSS) to support the about page

i'm definitely gonna check out dillinger
I've been using Natty and am currently on Oneric. The problems are probably overstated. I've used a variety of systems and didn't run into problems with Unity (different laptops and pcs).

Reminds me of Vista's launch somehow. I've also tested Vista since Beta on a multitude of systems and the only problem I ran into was caused by a wonky driver for an external audio interface.

Of course it's dangerous to extrapolate these personal experiences, but as always, discussions about operating systems tend to be exaggerated and inflammatory.

If there is group pressure to resist a change, many people will suddenly find reasons as to why they dislike something new.
Bloodcoin: the ultimate liquid asset
Federer gives Nadal a Tennis Lesson in 6-3 6-0 Bagel Beatdown
I got gnome-shell up and working with no issues, but after a while I decided to just switch to Linux Mint, which I'm very happy with.

Edit: I should say that is just on my MacBook Pro. I haven't switched on my development box yet because I'm in the middle of some projects and don't feel like having to reconfigure everything right now.

By the way, has anyone tried the Ubuntu to Linux Mint upgrade?
Do you know what else happened with the release of 11.10? They switched from Python 2.7.1 to python 2.7.2. And it shows the exact same correlation to this sag in downloads as the Unity UI.

Clearly, Canonical can't do anything right.

Oh, and also, Mint has had a huge rise in popularity at the same time, and, by the way, the graph shown in the article, in addition to any methodological flaws it may have, only shows relative numbers; Ubuntu drops from 11% down to something like 4%, but of what total? We have no idea from this graph whether there is an absolute drop or rise in the number of Ubuntu installs; only that Mint has taken off, relative to other distributions.

There's nothing in the data shown that ties this to Unity specifically, or even anything about Ubuntu itself. There have been hundreds of changes between 11.04 and 11.10, and the Linux landscape itself is changing at the same time. I don't see any firm data presented to blame the UI.
The problem is that if they keep using them for politics or for other things that aren't system messages, people will start ignoring them. "Ugh, that's that bar that just shows dumb political messages."
Common Lisp already has hashtables (not to mention simple association lists) what it doesn't have is a standard syntax for them. However, this is pretty easy to add with reader macros, for example:

http://frank.kank.net/essays/hash.html
I was thinking about this when I read the article. I found myself thinking that you'd have to present convincing evidence that you were from the future in such a way that you didn't change history - but then I realized that the whole purpose of the time travel would be to change history, so maybe that wouldn't be a limiting condition.

Maybe the time traveler could present a working ray gun?
HP LaserJet printers at risk of fiery hacker attack
For the people who think that IBM is doing this please read the fine line.

These articles are written by non-IBMers. I honestly don't know what the publishing rules are.
Wish this were in a git repository.
the response from your congressman's office was a form letter. the problem with letter writing campaigns is that after the first few most letters get stopped by the aides before they ever reach anybody of importance. congressmen have office hours. stop by and see if you can talk to him about it.
Sorry to deny you an answer and instead offer a question of my own but here goes: What are some unexplored niches in the social shopping market?
Did you check the reference for that?

Wikipedia simply points to a website full of names with no reference as to where they come from or statistics to back up the claim of it being common.
Ironically the site with the article itself pops up 13 items on my Ghostery, i think that's the most i've ever seen while browsing. Beats techcrunch's 12 trackers.
That article is painting a fantasy where there's no information asymmetry or self-interested players in an organization. In reality no one's got the time or interest to follow along behind every employee (male or female) going over their work product with a microscope in hopes of identifying and elevating talent.

The closest you see in the real world is fast-track programs where a few anointed employees are given challenging high-profile assignments and challenged to prove themselves before the next promotion. This approach doesn't scale, but it's better than nothing and so it's hard to resent companies for attempting it. As an employee outside of the fast track, it's up to you to change your situation. Often it's easier to get on someone else's fast track (i.e. at a new employer) rather than trying to catch a train you already missed at your current employer.

Given the limited attention and political capital your managers can use to help your career growth, one simply must take it upon themselves to craft and drive their own vision for career growth.
Tucson Fung Shui
Proto YouTube: How 1970s Video Collectives Anticipated Our Strange Internet
me too - :(
I presume you mean the tile effects?
They are using -webkit-transform-origin-x and translate3d to create that
Post mortem of an Android game (3D RPG)
What Is An In App Purchase In An iPhone Game
Apple pulls iTether from App Store
This post covers 2 methods of running your Jekyll site on Heroku without the messiness of having to check your '_site' build directory into git.
Reception Desk NDAs
It isn't the same thing with ads like adwords: With that, you don't know exactly what you're advertising, so you have no incentive in making false claims in your article to promote it. On the contrary, when I read articles promoting books with direct links to Amazon I automatically wonder if the author really liked that book, if he is qualified to judge it, or if he is just trying to sell me what he thinks would make him the most money.

Incidentally, that's exactly what happened when I followed the link to the post we're talking about :)
I remember `sudo apt-get install gnome-shell` and then choosing it at the next login and being quite smitten. (I later upgraded to ricotz's ppa for faster updates).
you're absolutely right, stackoverflow is preaching to the choir. but at least they're saying something, kudos to them. all opposition is good.

somebody else here had this idea, and i love it: facebook needs to shut down their site for an hour and replace it with the message "this is what happens if SOPA passes".
Actually just smelling mint has been shown to increase performance for tasks requiring concentration. Maybe there's some correlation there. The article only mentions sugar vs nosugar gum.
Take Google Maps inside IKEA (or airports, malls, etc.)
Google Maps 6.0 for Android, you can use your phone to see detailed floor plans of airports, malls, large stores, and other public spaces; get a more accurate location indoors; and find your way around large buildings.
Can you elaborate on the last line you wrote?
It's hard to fill technology jobs in the current competitive marketplace. So it's easier to take a mix of market rates and below-market rates and keep an average that is still below market rate than it is to exclude people who want market rate and still fill all the positions with qualified people.

I can't really speak to other fields, though.
> it's nowhere near as polished as the traditional Gnome desktop, but everything cool and new started out as something crappy and new

Many cool things starting out crappy and new doesn't mean that all crappy new things will be cool. I think most people that dislike Unity (myself included) feel like Unity is going in the wrong direction. If pressed, I could point out some really fundamental design issues with Unity, issues that fixing would make Unity less "Unity-like"

Also, I think the introduction of this major change was done in a very polarizing way. It was basically "use this new interface or F-off, maybe there's a way to use the old one, but go figure that out yourself." Making the new interface optional by default would have been way smoother.
I've pinged the developer on G+. (At least I think it's him.)

Hopefully he can get it fixed ASAP.
That was probably a reference to this link:

http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=3058626
I love WordPress but I will take bets on how long it takes them to change the name, given the obvious competing trademark: AdWords.
Montreal Business Innovation - Kezber
Groupon's rough ride down Wall Street
HN peeps help me out, there is a tool/service that lets you reskin a website and then show that to the site owner. What the heck is it called?
I'd like to see keyboard shortcuts to upvote, follow or flag a link.
December čas obdarovanj
It's not ironic:

http://www.zeldman.com/2011/11/18/it-is-not-ironic/
Works for me; very clever service!
I can't remember where I read it, but successful web properties often share the same theme of bringing the offline world online, or vice versa. This seems to do that quite nicely :)
[Context: I used to work at Terracotta. I currently do Clojure. I haven't had much time yet to look at Avout other than reading the same web pages you have.]

Terracotta has several kinds of distributed computing infrastructure - cluster infrastructure, distributed lock management, and shared memory (this is not all, but covers most of the distributed aspects). Maybe also important are data structures that are tuned to leverage this infrastructure (Ehcache is the most used one but also other java.util.concurrent classes). Terracotta is primarily focused on Java which is inherently based around mutable state and locks to protect it. Terracotta makes that state shared across the cluster and the locks protecting it distributed. Distributed locks in Java code are either done by leveraging the transaction semantics implied by synchronized keyword or Reentrant[ReadWrite]Locks - that is, it starts from standard Java memory model semantics and extends things from there. Most of the extensions are about weakening the model in ways that support common code patterns while allowing for greater distributed concurrency. The Ehcache distributed product hides some of the common complexities with mutable Java objects by focusing on Serializable keys/values (which users don't expect to retain object identity).

Avout is leveraging Zookeeper to provide the infrastructure, then layering the distributed locks and other Clojure state/identity mechanisms over the top. Avout can take advantage of two key aspects: 1) immutable data (which simplifies many hard problems in dealing with shared data and 2) focusing on Clojure change mechanisms which do not (externally) rely on locks, giving a lot more freedom in implementation. The latter defines transactional boundaries in much the same way that Java synchronization is leveraged by Terracotta to define transactional boundaries.

So I think saying that this is "Terracotta for Clojure" is a little true in that there is a bunch of overlap in the kinds of problems they're solving, but also much different in approach. For example, Clojure uses an MVCC + retry model of state change which Terracotta does not. I'm not trying to say either is better or worse - they are just different. Terracotta is also an inherently client/server model with a server cluster either collaboratively (via multiple actives) or redundantly (via hot backups) managing the shared state and a client cluster implementing the application. Avout seems to be more of a peered solution where some of the peers can write to stores (like Mongo).

Interestingly, it is fairly trivial to write a distributed lock manager over Terracotta - they have built demos like that (http://dsoguy.blogspot.com/2010/05/couple-minutes-with-terra...) but never released such a thing afaik. That implies to me that you could swap the Zookeeper+locks infrastructure with Terracotta without too much trouble. Given the many man-years of effort that have gone into optimizing the Terracotta distributed lock manager, that may be a big win for some use cases.
Free classified ads for online MLM business in India, USA and worldwide
Free classified ad site for online MLM business in India, USA and worldwide
I don't think there is much difference between what ActiveRecord is doing and what LINQ does.

The main LINQ object is an IQueryable object that implements IEnumerable. However, IEnumerable is not the object that has all the enumerator methods on it. That is IEnumerator. The only method IEnumerable has is the GetEnumerator method which returns the IEnumerator object.

So, in actuality, the "all" method in ActiveRecord kind of acts like the IEnumerable interface in returning the actual enumerator object.
I'm not sure that's valid case... the number of devices per person, and therefore per plane, has been rising rapidly over time (I carried at least 5 "electronic devices" (kindle, laptop, 2 phones, camera) onto my flight home last night.) A plane with 200+ people could soon have 400-500 devices versus 50 a decade ago - at one end or the other of that range they're either not a threat (and we needn't turn them off) or they're a real threat and need more than voluntary shutdown.

(BTW, I watched the folks in my row on the plane, and not one person besides me actually shut down their phone or Kindle. They all just either put them in airplane mode or standby by tapping the off key. So I'm guessing that the reality is that most devices are not actually shut off by non-technical users. Even typing this I realize my Kindle wasn't actually shut off, its 3G was still active.)

I find it hard to believe we exist exactly in the statistical sweet spot where voluntary compliance results in a materially safer outcome than broad non-compliance.
Heya - just didn't have the .c extension in the mapping. Will add it in tonight and get it out. Thanks!
Noeqd - A fault-tolerant network service for meaningful GUID generation
I am also getting a server error, which is a real shame, this is pretty awesome.

Suggestion: let me email/upload a photo or two, as well as the addresses and print retro postcard like views of the scaled down photos on top of the map.
Sure thing. So superficially, Compojure and Sinatra look similar:

get "/greet/:name" do |name|
"Hello #{name}"
end

(GET "/greet/:name" [name]
(str "Hello " name))

But these snippets of code are actually pretty different in what they do.

The Sinatra code generates a new route and adds it to an instance variable on the current object: it's a side-effectful method.

The Compojure code returns an anonymous function; it has no inherent side effects. If we wanted to do anything with it we'd want to bind it to a symbol:

(def greeting
(GET "/greet/:name" [name]
(str "Hello " name)))

The other main difference is that Compojure has no implicit variables like "params" or "request". For instance, in Sinatra we could rewrite the example as:

get "/greet/:name" do
"Hello #{params[:name]}"
end

But in Compojure, you don't get access to any variable you haven't explicitly bound:

(GET "/greet/:name" {params :params}
(str "Hello " (params :name)))

So Compojure is effectively very explicit where Sinatra is implicit.

The advantage of this approach is that Compojure is (IMO at least) better at nesting and abstracting functionality. For example:

(context "/user/:id" [id]
(let [user (find-user id)]
(routes
(GET "/history"
(get-history user))
(GET "/profile"
(get-profile user)))))
the percentage of distrowatch page hits that go to the ubuntu page is down 47%, but the total distrowatch page hits per month are up 50% this month. i'm no math genius, but doesn't that mean that distrowatch actually had more hits to their ubuntu page last month than any other month?
My app idea, hook it into google maps or something, and let me look at my watch for the next turn.

Just bought one, its a cool platform.
Report: Microsoft To Bring Office To iPad In 2012
Share Trading On The Internet.
We're running an experiment on our site, we've disabled ads entirely and we've seen an improvement in page load speeds across the board.

Unfortunately, some of the better-paying CPM ad networks have the slowest javascript ads the world has ever seen.

We're basically trying to see if removing ads improves our page load speed and therefore our SERP enough to somewhat offset the lost income.
There are many ways to negotiate without appearing aggressive. I'm sure 50% of the population can alert you to some of these methods.
The Top 100 Global Thinkers
Apple pulls iTether
Microsoft Builds A Browser-Based Windows Phone 7 Simulator
IMO "working hard" constitutes working an 8-hour day and not being a slack ass in your duties.

My day job is construction, mainly because I'm good at it. I find it every bit as stressful and mentally draining as when I've been doing sedentary work (I worked as a reviewer). The main difference is that the stress can often be used (when you have to nail in a certain position and it just happens there's a 1/8th inch steel plate on the stud, stress makes it a lot easier, and you're not stressed when the nail is driven).

I've said elsewhere here that we get highschool educated guys who can't read tape measures and who can't do basic trigonometry, and it's sad that we get guys in who've failed highschool, but you give them a pencil, a tape and a pair of tin snips and they can do trig, but they've failed math in highschool.

So given I am college educated, it is offensive (not that you personally offended me, I've received enough derogatory comments from doctors and the likes to realize that many peoples hundred-thousand dollar educations simply served to make them very stupid; that said a retired economics professor was happy as shit - he'd been writing newspaper articles for years about the shortages of 'unskilled' and 'semi-skilled' labour is crippling the economy) when people assume physical labour jobs require little mental ability.

My father taught me to work hard. He was a coder; he's taught me electrical, plumbing, concrete/floor laying, drywall, plastering, brick laying, roofing, welding, etc. He never taught me programming, because he didn't want me working for someone else my whole life (he's owned 4 businesses, all successful and profitable in his lifetime). He was happy as shit when I called to cancel my trip to see him next year, because I told him I'm looking to buy property to rent and start a property management company (I literally have all the skills necessary to turn a $90,000 piece of shit into $180,000 in the local market, meaning turning 1 $900 a month house rental into two $1200-1500 month unit rentals).
Ask HN: Is this any value to you? Social posting site overrun by spam
Hi!

Background:

Last year I decided to put up a social posting site for car enthusiasts to post current for-sale car ads. Being the complete non-coder that I am, I used a free package and installed it on some available server space. I played with it some but couldn't really figure out how to gain traction.

Spam slowly started to roll in, but now its hitting an interesting level.

Here are my stats from last month:

819 Visits

550 Absolute Unique Visitors

5,210 Pageviews

6.36 Average Pageviews

00:05:18 Time on Site

21.73% Bounce Rate

64.10% New Visits

My question is as follows: Does anyone have any suggestions on what I should do with this property? Is any ad person interested in analyzing the spam content/source etc? I am not sure if there is any value but wanted to put this out there for this amazing community.

Any comments are valuable.

www.drovit.com

(it seems the site is throwing some errors at the top, I will try and fix this)
> I think only once or twice I've ever made any sort of counter.

Argh! This kills me inside.

>Are there tips out there to help getting over the fear of negotiating?

It's the same with asking someone out.

The worst that can happen is they say no, and if they make such a big stink out of it you were better off with someone else in the first place because they are douchebags.
Android 4.0 upgrade list: Is your device getting Ice Cream Sandwich?
I've been using ubuntu for about 5 years now, and using it as basically my only OS for the last 3. I was very satisfied with it. The reason I'm not a fan of Unity is that not only did it break my workflow, but there appears to be no way to customize it to get back to what I have been doing for the past 5 years.

I understand the developers don't owe anyone anything, and everyone's free to leave (and I may, once staying on 10.10 gets to be a problem). I'm just unhappy that they decided to break what I was doing after 5 good years.

For those curious, the features I'm referring to are alt-tab to switch between windows (not applications) and proper virtual desktop support. Doesn't seem like much, and indeed, these features have worked flawlessly for me for years. Once I'm too far behind the upgrade curve, I'll probably have to try another distro or window manager, since from what I've read, Unity has no intention of un-breaking these. It was fun while it lasted though.
Microsoft CRM Success Portal
For the rest of us,

MBP :== MacBook Pro

and not

Maximally Bogus Product
My wife or mom. They both spend a lot of time traversing the internet, to places I would NEVER visit, and they've been known to open their pocketbooks while doing so, especially when they have a problem that needs a rapid solution.