skysight-inc/HackerNews huggingface dataset:
Scheme wasn't shelved because it was a "fringe" language. In fact, Prof. Hilfinger the one who brought it to Berkeley in 1980, and that class 61A is the first course all CS majors take. Brian Harvey taught the class for ever, and published his own textbook "Simply Scheme."

MIT is doing something similar, with the support of the authors.

The same material is being taught, just in a different language.
This strikes me as a bit naïve. Hollywood can be seen as two different things:

1) An ecosystem of artists creating music, movies and TV shows.

2) A group of companies distributing and commercializing the output of the ecosystem.

It's hard to say where one ends and the other one begins. YC, you may want to kill #2 but not #1.

Or do you expect to fund "startups" that create TV shows, movies, or music? If so, start looking for the younger Louis CKs of the world.
I know this is completely off-topic, but pg: reading that football analogy from an American makes me love you.

On topic, is there not space for (if there was enough funding put into it) a new studio, one that understands the internet and modern culture? I'm not sure it's the content that's wrong, it's the business models around it.
What's often left out is the reason that that's a useful rule to have: if PUTs are always idempotent, then you can always safely repeat a PUT if you're not sure whether it succeeded or not. This makes it easier to build robust systems.
> making money from art is not a human right.

This is an excellent point (and paragraph) - I wish more people understood this (although it is probably scary to many in the startup community).
Understanding the basic ramifications of SOPA / PIPA requires relatively little technical competence.

The opinions expressed by our lawmakers are a reflection of mentality, not age.

It was sickening to watch the legislators praise their own ignorance. It's totally cool not to be a subject matter expert in everything - nobody expects them to be. However, it's maddening that they had not already consulted any "nerds".

It really begs the question : does this apply to all other aspects of our government? Do we draft legislation on energy, defense and immigration without consulting subject matter experts at the outset?
1) Please don't preface your comment with a statement about people downmoding you. All that does is make me think, "well, the following opinion will probably be poorly thought out flamebait". It's also against the site guidelines.

2) There's a large gap between funding a company which sells something to a company which has a political point of view you disagree with, and actively sponsoring bad legislation. In fact, I can't see how those two things can even be compared. So, your first statement "I will probably be downvoted" is true. Implicitly you're claiming the downvoting will be unfair, but your claim doesn't make much sense, so that's probably the reason it'll happen.
I'd rather have organizations that get the deal then companies forced into it. To often we get "code dumps" with the GPL and not an engaged company.
Here is an idea for the taking: bypass big-studio production, theaters, cable & physical media sales/rental, and go direct to streaming video rentals, e.g. to Amazon or Netflix, or set up your own streaming infrastructure. This business model is disruptive by capping allowed production budgets and greatly reducing distribution expenses.

Produce content digitally. Have subscribers pay a recurring fee to genre-oriented channels like TV but implemented as streaming rentals only. IP is protected similar to existing streaming content.

Avoid content production competition from Netflix or Amazon by genre focus, e.g. just military sci fi, or youth romance.

Non-broadcast, video on demand can be also targeted at adult audiences - imagine something like the original content HBO produces but with direct-to-consumer streaming video bypassing cable.

Exit by selling startup to Amazon, Netflix, Google (YouTube), etc.
From a technical founder's position, as having been someone whose been recruited a lot recently: Try focusing more on what you have to offer than what they most possess to be qualified to work with you. If you're like most people talk to, filtering out people isn't the problem most people in your position are struggling with:)
Or possibly some people aren't necessarily wired to grok

the concepts needed to get ahead in this industry and find
that while they like the increased earning potential sitting
in a desk all day long writing code isn't for them.

To be honest in the long run they're probably better off

with a business degree and MBA if they really want to max out
on earning potential.

Meanwhile power to them. It keeps our salaries higher.
I've spent a good bit of time using Corona SDK and have found it to be a useful platform. The engine uses Lua and deploys natively to iOS and Android platforms. The yearly license fee is about $349 to deploy to both platforms. Check out Grisly Manor on Android for an example of a game written using Corona.
It's obvious that many new forms of entertainment will use the web as a medium which, barring dictatorships, is worldwide, so you don't have to worry about it, insofar as you have enough bandwidth.
Refactoring Common API Functionality Into A Node.js Proxy
Those low paying jobs would just shift to what people would be spending their money on instead.

Most middle to low income earners spend every dime they make. If they're not spending it on movies or music, it's going to something else like beer, diapers or travel.
That's the sort of disingenuous remark a politician would make. It's hypocritical of us to want to fund companies doing good things because one of the 383 companies we've funded has one customer you don't like? We don't have any control over who companies we fund do business with.
Corruption and Sustainability: Like Oil & Water Do Not Mix
A first glance the two topics might seem unrelated—the one about criminal behavior and the other about something like environmental responsibility.
Wow, that's actually a very nice law. And yet, despite reading a bunch of threads about copyright, this is the first time I've run into it. I wonder why something like this doesn't get brought up more often.
I think you're confusing the medium with the distribution method.

If you accept that modern-day Hollywood is in trouble, it does not necessarily follow that a solution needs to replace video as a multimedia narrative medium. While that very well might happen, the root of the problem is the distribution channel, not the content.
I co-founded my first company @ 30. It was pretty scary, but me and my co-founder kept working on our day jobs until we felt like we had the momentum to go raise some money. As soon as we did, we both quit and went to work full-time.

It was scary, but we did specifically did not burn our bridges. We kept in touch with all the people we could so that if we needed to have some bridge funding via consulting work, it was always on the table for us.

The strongest counter-argument I can make for saying "You need to be doing X,Y,Z to succeed" is that the failure rate for startups is over 90%, so no-one knows what really works or doesn't. There's a combination of execution, luck, and recognizing good timing that comes into play. I've seen companies/individuals hit it big with the most laid back attitude toward the product because they found the right thing at the right time (PlentyOfFish), and people who work insanely hard who just disappear (the list is huge here...).
Well, no, your risk--the probability that things go tits up--is the same as the founders': you're working for the same company, after all, and you have even less ability to influence the course of events.

Your expected opportunity cost in the case of failure is smaller--like you say, you draw salary as soon as you start (though the salary is often less than market rate). I will point out that employees are usually less well-informed than founders about a company tanking, so will usually have a couple of months lag in looking for another job, and that "I was employee 3 at Vunge Games" doesn't sound nearly as good as "I founded Vunge Games" when you're at interviews.

Your expected payoff in the case of success is probably at least an order of magnitude smaller, and from anecdotal evidence seems to not be much more than it takes to make up the market wage shortfall over the course of your employment.

This isn't intended to be pedantry--I figure that all of them (but especially the expected opportunity cost) are likely to vary based on region and are worth noting as hidden costs. But from my perspective, being an early employee at a start-up is a bit of a mug's game when the alternative is bootstrapped founding from corporate employment.
Passport - Simple, unobtrusive authentication for Node.js
Getting your users to create content
It was shutdown based on a warrant that was issued based on an accusation (and probably at least some evidence), which makes all the difference.
I think you're discounting the value of people's opinions too much. Basing a decision on what the denizens of Hacker news think is the best answer is a perfectly acceptable method of moving forward. Whole businesses and methods are based on this sort of wisdom (Crowdsourcing answers, the Facebook "Like" button, re-tweets on Twitter). Choosing the most popular answer might have it's drawbacks, but sometimes its the right answer.
You have a point in that time of day and all the other factors you listed might skew the results, but it might not skew them in a way that bothers me. If something is the best answer, I'm sure people in Asia or Europe or America can pick it out. They might have wildly different answers, or they could also be exactly the same.
I get the impression you think just because people "liked" one answer the best isn't a technical enough reason to go with that answer, and in fact you think the decision should be based on something more substantial. I disagree that this always needs to happen.
What if you want to update a value, but you want to store the number of times it was updated to be returned in the JSON (not idempotent, but not an unreasonable thing to want)? Would you still use PUT?

My point is not that the ascribed meaning of POST and PUT is bad, I think the concepts behind both these functions are great, but what if you want to make a different or more complicated function? It makes sense to me to invent your own rather than be limited to what HTTP gives you.
It's the studio and record label system that needs killing. The creative, skilled people who make entertainment and art need to be able to thrive.
For more info, the main website is at: http://www.rust-lang.org/

They recently added a tutorial: http://doc.rust-lang.org/doc/tutorial.html

Of specific interest to language nerds may be the recent addition of interfaces (http://doc.rust-lang.org/doc/tutorial.html#interfaces), which cover some of the same ground as both C++ classes and inheritance as well as Haskell's typeclasses.
It appears that Pipermail mangled the Github link, leading to a discouraging 404. Try this instead:

http://github.com/mozilla/rust/

For anyone who's been on the fence while waiting for the language to solidify, this release is a great opportunity to jump in and contribute. It looks to be mainly optimization, library development, documentation, and tooling from this point forward.
Show HN: BOA Sidebar, Path 2.0-Inspired Sidebar for iOS
Yes! I was thinking the same thing. I'm hoping many more will come to this conclusion:

http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=3490496

Artists are the key. Can we offer them something better than the existing system? The answer would suggest content production, but how is it funded initially? Is it crowd sourced? Do investors take on the initial risk? Do we make it easier for people to purchase subscriptions to the (new) content they enjoy while giving artists a much higher percentage of revenue?
I find it utterly fascinating how under the radar a lot of the new media has been.

Only recently have some people begun to appreciate that Netflix has as many subscribers as many large cable companies, though I think it's still flirting with the popular consciousness so far. Meanwhile, there are many people making their living off of original content posted to youtube or elsewhere, and in some cases they are making 6 figure incomes.

The Guild, Penny-Arcade TV, vlogbrothers, Dr Horrible, etc, this is an incredibly rapidly growing phenomenon. Yet good luck finding a story about it in the traditional media, it might as well not exist.

Meanwhile, online comics are quickly upstaging print comics. There will come a day in the next few years when the aggregate revenue from web comics exceeds that from the traditional comic studios (DC, Marvel, etc.)

I wonder at what point these phenomena will start to penetrate the mainstream, when the average guy on the street will start to "get it".
Bring Mega Back
Yeah, and Windows sales dropped 6% last quarter.
What's all this about 'predetermined' ?
Ask HN: Do you prefer to hold your tablet landscape or portrait?
I'm new to iPad development, so design issues like this have just been brought to my attention. I'm learning a lot about little subtleties. For example, my kids entertainment app (landscape fixed) features a menu with images of animals that you can drag onto a main canvas. I initially designed this menu on the left, but after a bit of testing, I didn't like the way your arm covered up most of the screen as you were reaching over to touch the menu. This made me realize most people are right handed, and would probably feel the same way. After moving the menu to the right, it also made me realize that a pulling drag is different from a pushing drag, something I might want to take into account for the future.

I've been wondering if people prefer a certain way of holding and using their iPad or tablets. Personally I prefer landscape mode for browsing and reading, as the portrait mode renders more page than necessary and makes the text tiny. Overall I prefer holding it in landscape mode, I'm not sure why but it feels more solid in my hands. Portrait has a weird weight distribution, or maybe it has to do with reaching more because of the bigger north/south distance.

Any thoughts on design/UX appreciated. Thanks
[ This comment is unavailable in your region. ]
Dittos. I found out on HN. Checked to see if it had gone to some stray account / folder, but I never received any notification that I can find. Anyone?
Embarrassingly... no. Our login/authentication system was written in 1999, and it shows -- we store panel login passwords using symmetric encryption, and send out the decrypted password when you request it.

Getting this fixed was already on our to-do list. This incident has moved it up to near the top of the list (competing with a few other security-related tasks).
I don't know why this would prevent people from working for them. I'd see such a complicated scheme to split compensation amongst founders as perhaps a slight minus , but I know plenty of people who want to work for cash+bonus. I'd much rather get a competitive (with real businesses, not Valley startups), sizable cash bonus than equity in almost any startup.
I wonder how much the TAs had influence on the Labs, or the Instructor is trying really hard to relate with today's students.

From Lab 4 [0]:
Exercise 2: Data Herp Derping

The same lab -- possibly others -- has mixed whitespace usage (ex. str_rat method), which may be worrisome for introducing students to languages that hinge upon proper whitespace. The examples will work, as expected, but beginners may be confused by usage of or burdened by not understanding the implications of using 4 spaces here, 6 spaces there, etc.

[0] http://www-inst.eecs.berkeley.edu/~cs61a/sp12/labs/lab4/lab4...
I honestly believe that technologies like Flatr will make this possible.

You have to lower the barriers to having people purchase content. There's a mental barrier which stops you from spending $1 to watch another episode of House. Even though you like House, and you'd like to watch another episode.

And for "free content," well, ads suck. Nobody likes ads. We don't like being forces to watch ads, before we watch content. People who buy ad space don't like you to be able to skip their ads. YouTube is trying to pitch "skippable ads". Still not close enough, I think.

If I watch Sherlock from the BBC and like it, I Flatr it. I think that model works. I'm not sure - but that's my hunch.

Humble Indie Bundle is another great example - but I don't think it works for broadcast video.
I think it will never work. Human muscles are way too weak related to our own body weight.
Microsoft, Intel Face Their Kodak Moment
There are 61A videos on ITunes U but it's hard to tell if they are from the Python version of the course? Anyone know if there are videos of the lectures kicking about from past years of the Python version?
I almost completely agree, but a problem I often encounter in REST API design is: how to do searches?

Let's say we have an "Event" Resource and it belongs to a "Location" Resource and the Event belongs to "Category" Resources. If you want to provide an endpoint to search events with a GET requests and filter based on Location and Categories (which are identified by URLs) you can end up with really long query strings.

/events?location=URL1&categories[]=URL2&categories[]=URL3&categories[]=URL4&...

This is not only ugly, it can bring up problems on both clients and servers.

Any suggestions on how to handle this?
By implication then is the next big distribution channel already technically feasible?

I think history makes it pretty clear someone will jump on it. It sounds like that someone will not be in the US or US-similar copyright regimes.

So what kind of business can capitalize on the new distribution model -- without running afoul of the DMCA etc.?

It would probably be helpful to megaupload's successor (that assumes megaupload was the next distribution channel) to have an ecosystem ready and crying out for it. It would keep the distribution channel stuffed with _legitimate_ content, thus increasing its odds of survival when it inevitably runs into US Federales.
Swedish NIC: SOPA/PIPA threaten to destroy the foundation for the Internet
Homework is the problem - it burns people out, and not just engineering students, but everyone k-12 as well.

I'm a supporter of the flipped classroom model, it makes a lot of sense and is a real solution to this exact problem.

http://www.knewton.com/flipped-classroom
I agree that Hollywood is evil, however, is the argument that it has peaked really accurate? ("Hollywood is dying.")

This RFS doesn't really give any statistics (perhaps because it will be up for longer than those statistics will be current). That said, based on a few minutes of Google searching, the average American apparently watches 150 hours of TV per month, and every few years there is a new "biggest grossing film of all time." That doesn't necessarily constitute growth, but it hardly seems like the type of upheaval occurring in the recording industry.

Is this analysis incorrect?
Ever popular:

http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2185434

http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2134812

http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2098332
This could be journalistic laziness and muddling of facts, but there is also something to be said for understanding the sub-millisecond performance considerations of a large professional effort, which may need an assured throughput even with known possible failures, and instantaneous hand off of each packet in as near real time as tuned with other devices, so as to not gum up the works subtly both down and up stream.
Right... go tell that to Hulu and Netflix. I'd do it myself, but it's not available on my region. And I'm not even in a 3rd world country! Go figure...
Show HN: Smart Mail - Sync your Smart Office and Mail Chimp accounts.
Thanks for the feedback. If you could send me the details, I'll check that they make sense. The key part is "everything else being equal". The everything else actually influences how important the idea is and how much the developer would get...
I'm not sure what point you're trying to get across by posting that entire chat log aside from the fact that you're kind of a dick to the support person.
This is really spectacular. Nicely done!
DreamHost Hacked; Change Your Passwords Now
Free idea: Create an app that provides a TiVo-like experience to all web video. You could "record" channels from YouTube the same way you'd queue TED, or even Hulu+, Netflix, et all.

Your app would automatically pull new streaming episodes for you to watch and manage the same way people use DVRs on televisions.

If internet TV, and "television app" really are the next thing...if you build an amazing version of this now, you'll be set.

Not only that, but you'd encourage more people to produce content, since viewing it and following new episodes would all happen in one place.
Interviewing  eBay Part II - Software Engineering Interview
More information http://www.dreamhoststatus.com/2012/01/20/changing-ftpshell-...
Except the money for #1 comes from studios and production houses, who incidentally are the ones distributing the content as well.
The point that he raises by stating the fact that for most of the history of human art, people have not been paid to create art is not one to be overlooked. Mick Jagger has also said this of the music business specifically.

Looking back on art over the centuries I would not say that today's art is necessarily "better" because people are paid to create it.

Yet I've read statements by entertainment industry people that if we don't spend heaps of money on motion pictures, their quality will plummet to the likes of "reality TV".

Not only do I think this is complete rubbish -- it's not the budget that makes the quality of the film -- but all I can think rgarding the reality TV comment is, "Then why the heck are we bombarded with crappy reality TV?" The reasonable conslusion is because the stuff gets watched. So even if there was a drop in quality, it isn't going to affect their profits. People will still consume this stuff.
IMPACT Awards To Recognize North Texas Startups
You realize pg was born in England to welsh parents right (although he grew up in the US) ?
There are not enough players in the streaming industry to negotiate. If you lose one you will not be able to make enough money from the other 2. They know this and will be able to low ball you. They also pay a flat fee up front based on how much demand you can prove for your product. Small studios cannot prove demand very well.

You would be better off going straight to the physical distributors like RedBox and selling the rights to Netflix once you can show some demand for the product.

Or, you could set up your own streaming site that lets users view the pilot for free. If they like it that can preorder the first season. With enough demand you can afford to sign that show.
This battle will be long and tedious gentlemen with setbacks for both sides... but I can see it slowing degrading for Hollywood and you can bet new legislations will make sure they will remain with considerable power for decades after their market lost all appeal and logic sense of existence in a digital world.
It was the mid 90's, nobody gave a flip about standards (that includes the other competitors out at the time..), and there's really no good reason for an OS for an internet connected world not to include a web browser.
A couple of years ago, I wrote a big bunch of scripts to benchmark about 10 web servers (Apache flavors, Lightspeed, Lighttp, nginx, etc) against each other. 300 concurrent requests; 5 different types of files; measured requests per second and ending RSS. In comparison to Apache worker-MPM, nginx:

served small files about 40% faster;

served larger files about 5% more slowly and;

used 3MB instead of 30MB.

The differences weren't enough to stop me using Apache. Interestingly Apache worker-MPM and event-MPM performed nearly identically.