skysight-inc/HackerNews huggingface dataset:
Why "Killing Hollywood" isn't the answer
While* all of the recent talk about "Killing Hollywood" has sparked conversation throughout the hackasphere, the truth is the the record industry, the movie and tv industries are and have been the best employers of artists this side of the Medici clan.

To understand the problem, it is in my opinion crucial to understand what it is that artists do, and what the (few) industries that explicitly support artists mean to those whom they employ.

Unless and until the tech industry can do this, and help develop new ways for artists to empower themselves, the self-righteousness will backfire, the way it did for musicians who railed for generations against the powers that be and are now left with less employment opportunities in the industry than at any time in the last 100 years.

I'm a musician, and software developer myself, here is my attempt at solving the problem: http://www.feed-forward.net

I think that helping artists self organize is the future, to that extent I've developed an application that gives incentive for artists to engage each other in meaningful discourse over each others work. The more constructive criticism and positive reinforcement artists give for one anothers' work, the more exposure they get for their own. In this way I hope that artists won't have to "Kill" their corporate masters, but rather that we can become our own bosses. After all I read somewhere once that people are willing to work harder for less if they are doing something that they love...

What does HN think?
-Shoham
I guess I did, but I was trying to use it as an example of why laptops are going away. Didn't mean to make it focused my possessions exclusively.

Thanks for your thoughts!
Bookmarked it, thanks
I don't think they get success only because of good looks, but because they do something useful or fun.
Between a dozen similarly useful apps, the ones that look good are the ones that will get coverage and be popular.

If your idea is truly as revolutionary and unique as you think, it could probably look like shit and still be popular.
A demo of "Bring". An interesting way to install apps on iPhone
Mainly, we're file-based and we mirror all file mgmt operations on your computer. So you always have your content with you. And any offline edits (to your SocialFolders Google Docs for example) is applied online as soon as you reconnect.

And we have a business model.
>Error establishing a database connection

Does anyone have a mirror?
Earlier discussion: http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=3501561
Sure, and...

1. It means they're scared. Companies wouldn't do this if they were afraid of a 10% bump in salaries. They'd just pay it out. That's small compared to the cost incurred by constant churn, code turning into legacy as people leave the company, etc. To pull that shit, they're worried about something larger.

2. If they were able to pull that "cartel" off (and such arrangements are inherently unstable, because it's always in the individual interest to break) it would be stupid for them and advantageous for startups. If the big companies hold each other back ("crab mentality") then startups would have less competition for talent.

In fact, the second contradicts the intentional over-hiring observed at large companies: why do these huge companies pay $150-250k for people to do mind-numbing, unnecessary maintenance work on zombie projects? (I've seen legacy monsters at large companies with 4 full-time maintainers.) Because they don't want these people in startups that might threaten them, 5 to 10 years down the road. Fighting to keep down salaries just seems to increase the likelihood of this happening.
Yes, it was the hardest/easiest thing to learn I've ever experienced. Sometimes I was jumping out of my chair and then other times throwing things against the wall.

Plenty of times I wanted to just give up.. during those points; I'd step back and go take a break, go for a walk, do something.. other than think.

Programming is hard because it's full-time blitz mode thinking. I felt the front part of my brain (is that where all the programming juice is held?) hurt often in the beginning.

Do you have an actual product you want to work on?
The kind of training salespeople need
The Guy Who Troubleshoots for Drug Dealers and Jealous Lovers
Does it count as an assassination if the FAA uses its mind control device to convince you to walk out into the middle of the forest and kill yourself?

Wait, it's the NSA that has the mind control ray...
This is a really nice idea, well done! I'm going to try this out for a few days but I fully expect to but an annual premium account. I'd quite like it if i could turn off the menubar icon in OS X though.
Harvard Prof: Megaupload-Style Cases Will Kill Prosecuted Companies
Apple doesn't have $100B, or even $90B, that it can use to buy Hollywood, pay dividends, give more money to employees, etc.

A huge fraction of Apple's cash is outside the US. Bringing that money into the US would require paying 35% (US corporate tax rate).
I agree. I thought it looked neat until the last 30 seconds, once I saw the drag and drop uploads I needed to have it.
TBH I don't see employer unions as different from employee unions.

Individual employees/employers will band together for mutual benefit. Then one, for significant personal benefit, will break ranks. The market decides what point that is.

I say this as an employee.
Is there a way to contact you privately ? Your HN profile shows no fax number. ;) Something like an email address as feedback [at] illi.co would be useful.
Grid design system. Hero (one big unit in middle of the screen) +3 (3 smaller units just below).

I tried to find a quick example with blank content, but this is the best I can pull at short notice: http://twitter.github.com/bootstrap/examples/hero.html

Question: Are you guys funded? Looking for funding? and do you store the data serverside in addition to the users device?
It’s Impossible to Put a Timeline on SEO Success
Do You Want Followers or Leads?
Google invented a time machine (see last modified)
Rarely will people admit to having such strong opinions about things they know so little about.
> Do you have an actual product you want to work on?

Having a real product to build, even if its just to help yourself and not the world is key. It gets you out of the tutorials (which you need to do) and into finding out the main problems you have to solve to get something live.

And once you've got something live, you've built your mental framework that you can "hang" everything else you learn on.
SOA example application
Except when the best of the best want to go from Apple to Google, specifically. And can't. It's not just about salaries, it's about prohibiting professional growth. And I would be very surprised if it didn't keep salaries down.
Sorry - this is so last century. We are heading Into the Cloud, not into "get my social content to my PC" era...
If you have a large domain with a large number of N circles, you could try using a B-Tree like approach. Basically partitioning your domain in a N-Tree (instead of a traditional quad-tree). The wide branching factor per node will give you a shallower tree that's more efficient if you are doing lots of updates to the data-structure. You can also rid yourself of pointers to do really fast traversals through your N-Tree using an approach like (http://www.matmidia.mat.puc-rio.br/tomlew/publication_page.p...). Lewiner et. al. talk about oct-trees there, but it could be generalized.

I have some code that implements such a data-structure in 3D (should be easily modifiable to 2D). I can mail you the source if you are interested.
Use enums for your op codes, and a switch statement (depends on compiler). If you use enums and a switch, the compiler can generate a jump table because it knows the enum will always be in a certain range. Much better performance than a bunch of if/else statements.

You can generate some beautifully simple interpreters this way, but switch/dispatch is not the way to go for high performance. Jump tables like that are not a good candidate for optimisation by compilers and they kill any sort of branch prediction your CPU is doing.

Here's an post (and follow up discussion) by the author of the Lua, where he explains why the main loop is written in assembler and why it beats compilers:

http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2588696
Great project! I remember seeing the possibilities of something along these lines, when I browsed the recipes of ifttt that crawled your social feeds for photos by yourself and others and saved them in your Dropbox folder. If this folder were shareable, it would create a different social network all by itself! And better yet, I wouldn't have to sign up for silly social networks and Facebook in order to get access to that data.

I don't know if this is disruptive, but I hope this will help break the data lock-ins networks like Facebook and Twitter photo services are using to retain and attract users. (And what happens if one of the sites go belly-up with all your data?)

If I could make one suggestions, the site as it currently is looks like one for a generic software download. You should, eventually, try to make it look more friendly and inviting as if to say that this is a social ecosystem of sorts.

Best of luck! If you're in SF or NYC, you probably won't need it with all the people who'll throw themselves at you over a great idea like this. :)
I'd like to add to this simply because I had a very similar experience but with PHP.

There were definitely times when I was extremely frustrated and wanted to give up. There were a couple times when I had 5+ hour sessions and got nowhere, then I'd come back the next day to realize it was a stupid mistake.

One thing I can't stress enough (and James has been saying it too), if you don't have a final site, product, or app in mind you're probably going to get bored and walk away for good. I tried to learn C++ a while back and gave up because I didn't have anything in mind and the boring repetitive exercises lead to nothing in the end.
Indeed. If it were 7 guys sitting around, they may never sell at any price.

But if it's a bunch of conglomerates, which it is, then with enough money anything is possible.
10,000 Artists In 27 Days: What Brenden Mulligan's Doing Between Startups
Then we can look forward to patent lawsuits over aspect ratios.

No thanks.
But unions exist to counter the grossly disproportionate amount of power that an employer has especially in a depression like this one, where unemployment drives down the cost of labor.
I like pypy and its ambitions, last time I tested it, about a month ago it was very speedy and startup time considerable faster than Cpython. However the regex exercises I wanted to do couldnt be done. Pypy seemingly didnt have a good regexp engine. If I remember correctly, something with groups and backwards-reference...

Has that changed?
You are wrong. Some people still want their (private) data in one place - on the harddrive.
Well, growing 2d circles are just static sliced cones in 3d.

So maybe some 3d space partitioning technique will do.

EDIT: but I can't really think of any suitable for indexing big long cones. So it's no really useful idea :/
An open letter to the European Union on discrimination
Great morning read, I'll have to be more careful about my fly...
"presentation in Melbourne by a who worked on the CrossRail business case" who was this?
Drink Like Royalty: Berry Bros. & Rudd's King's Ginger Hits America
I think you underestimate the vastness of Da Vinci's contributions.

Have you seen any of his paintings in real life?

I saw an amazing Da Vinci exhibit in South Africa more than a decade ago. It included not only some of his paintings, but also an incredible array of sketches in fields where he made important discoveries such as anatomy, optics, civil engineering, etc.

For me, when you see the depth of his work across a wide swathe of fields, he stands out as a beacon amongst a fog of misery and ignorance.
You've applied/discovered a technique called Threaded Code[1], common in Forth implementations and the basis of Return-Oriented Programming[2]. :)

[1]http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Threaded_code
[2]http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Return-oriented_programming
US teacher tracks his bike rides by GPS - and creates some stunning artwork
The Myth of the Negative Mammogram
A treaty is an agreement that happens because diplomats acting on behalf of governments have reached agreement. So for ACTA, the treaty has been drawn up and agreed by various diplomats including those representing the EU.

But these diplomats cannot legislate. The treaty only comes into force when the various parliaments pass laws committing their countries to the treaty's provisions.
Il manque une fonctionnalité de messagerie privée à HN avec laquelle on pourrait envoyer un MP ou être contacté sans risque d'être spammé.

Il y a pas mal de lecteurs francophones sur HN. C'est à se demander si on ne devrait pas organiser une rencontre HN France un jour.
Plink - Earn Facebook Credits for Dining-Out or Purchasing Offline
Show HN: Stratos CMMS, web-based maintenance management software
I'm curious: What do you need the disk space for? Is it something that can be farmed out to say, Amazon S3?
You're right, Windows DOES work really well for a lot of people. The Microsoft hate doesn't come from these people. In surveys, Microsoft is deemed "competitive", "best-in-class" and so on (by the masses). But the tech who have to administrate it prefer Linux. Windows caused them some huge headaches in the nineties. Now, starting about 2002 a lot of these same Linux-using tech guys switched over to Macs as a Unix. As Apple grew and grew, it did not completely piss off these same people. Now the Mac is becoming walled-off, but Apple gets a pass from these same sys admin type people where Microsoft doesn't.

I agree with you that Windows means huge productivities for millions of businesses, and also that Macs really resonate with huge numbers of people, also millions. I also agree with the reason we're coming to an explanation, which is that Apple seems to get a pass on monopolistic behavior that we (tech people) railed on in the nineties. My attempt is to try to explain part of that.
Because recursive expansion is amusing. If this was Reddit, this thread would be at least ten comments long by now!
Shouldn't be any problems the file is hosted on S3… Weird. Can you try again and shoot me an email at martin@socialfolders.me if it still doesn't work?
Microsoft only stopped being evil once Gates left.

Since Gates left, Microsoft stopped winning or creating products people want, turning slowly into a patents troll instead.

Also, Microsoft's "evilness" during Gates pales in comparison to what Apple, Facebook, Google and Amazon are doing right now.
Independent brick bookstores are going to look a lot like what's described here: some new books, but mostly used. Run on a very-slightly-profitable basis, in the cheapest commercial rental space available. One proprietor, who does most of the work, and occasional after-school or summer help. All the inventory will be on the web, thanks to a phone app that turns a picture of a book's cover into a full catalog listing. Prices will be depressed to rock-bottom, and some variant of the EBay "1 cent plus shipping" scheme will be the rule for anything not currently in demand.

In twenty years, your average $50 ebook reader will have a 300 dpi full-color full-motion transflective screen, readable in sunlight or with a backlight. Most of the weight will be battery. It will have a tiny CPU and a relatively studly GPU, a small amount of permanent storage (less than a terabyte) and a short distance wireless network link, which will feed your headphones if you want sound, or connect to your phone or your house networks.

There will be a secondary screen on the back which displays the book's cover. You will have the option of changing that to anything else you want to display.

Many people will not bother to buy them, because they already carry a phone that can do all that, just with a smaller screen.
I think that the major problem that many people (myself included) have with the music and film industries is that they actually show very little interest in supporting, nurturing, or rewarding the talent that they rely on. The call to "kill hollywood" isn't a call to wipe out these large companies on principal; it's a call to bring in a new breed of companies which give everyone (artists and consumers) a better deal.

The real problem is that people have been beholden to these monopolies who very obviously don't have their best interests at heart. We are now, thanks to internet and unprecedented levels of connectivity between people, in a position where we can (with a bit of effort, admittedly) take back some control and build something better for everyone.

So that's how I see it. This isn't a knee-jerk reaction to SOPA/PIPA/ACTA (at least, not entirely). This is a call for people to make the world a bit better before the incumbent powers that be destroy our chance to.
Any idea what web site it is that does this calculation? I quick DDG search didn't reveal anything, at least with my search-fu.

UPDATE: Never mind, I think I found it: http://nearspaceventures.com/w3Baltrak/readyget.pl
Yeah I mean you are sooo right, look at Photo Stream! I mean, Photo Stream is SO last century. Hmmm.
Bill Gates: I wrote Steve Jobs a letter as he was dying. He kept it by his bed
F5 Friday: Goodbye Defense in Depth. Hello Defense in Breadth.
Oh god, this way lies madness. :) It really does. Once you get beyond a fairly low level of complexity, there will be maintainence problems: It will take you too long to get it right, it will be impossible to figure out when something goes wrong, and you'll drive the next poor developer crazy if he doesn't have a complete knowlege of make (which is most of us). Yes, sometimes it may be neccesary to do this if you want to reuse some rules and functions but modify them under different conditions, AND you are restricted to doing it all in the Makefile (rather than preprocessing, calling out to external scripts, etc.)
This is my solo founder startup.

It's a maintenance management system for people who maintain equipment, facilities, or installations (from golf courses to oil rigs to buildings). All these people need to schedule maintenance tasks, track repairs and modifications, and keep an inventory of parts. My system is simple, and easier to use than anything else out there.

I'm looking for any feedback at all, about the design, the idea, the execution so far.

I'm struggling to get my first customers, which is unexpectedly difficult. I know that it was a mistake to go this far without lining up a decent number of potential customers. I've had some feedback and done one big pivot and a few iterations; maintenance people who have seen it really like it; but that's not enough to get the snowball rolling yet.

I've been focused on web marketing, particularly with Adwords. I'm quite shocked and dismayed that it's costing me 4$ a click to drive traffic to the site; I have to find another way. My focus right now is on improving organic search ranking; once I make some improvements there I plan to start cold calling...
Now your twisting things - I didn't claim I have no ambition to help 'anyone', I said I have no ambition to devote my time to charity work. If that makes me a bad person in your eyes, I guess I'll have to learn to live with it.

Also, there is no evidence that Jobs was particularly concerned with 'stockpiling mountains of money'. He was mostly concerned with making great products, which he felt was his contribution to the world. I for one am glad that he focused on what he was driven to do, rather than make some token effort to impress journalist and technology forum posters with what a fantastic man he was.
I guess I meant the de facto definition. Literally every attempt at a public financing bill/amendment I've seen in Congress has the express purpose of precluding direct corporate financing[1].

Also, I was not arguing whether or not any of these proposals can be 100% effective (like you clearly deny). This is a straw man, but it is definitely worth debate on a case-by-case basis.

[1] most recent (and probably most ambitious) example: https://www.popvox.com/bills/us/112/hjres100/report. An intriguing proposal from L. Lessig: http://www.plainsite.org/issues/index.html?id=29
It replies via SMS or MMS to every phone number in the conversation, regardless of whether it is an iPhone or not. I can see your point about not having this capability on other smartphones, but why not build an android/bb app that does exactly that instead? (if it doesn't already exist)
No offense taken. I'm actually not sensitive about their red hair, I love it and the hair of their very sexy redhead mother.

I guess I must have misnderstood the colloquialism as I read it as similar humor to this http://smh.drive.com.au/governments-dont-be-a-dickhead-campa...
Make should really be superceded by a build system that is both faster and more correct.

One of these options today is the tup[1] build system.

It seems to be a relatively modest/new effort, and is already far better than Make.

[1]: http://gittup.org/tup/
Just a heads up, if you click on "Getting Started" at the bottom it sends you to the "getting-started-mac" page, and the download is for mac. If I click directly on "download" it knows I'm on windows, but through the getting started vector it serves me the wrong link.

Otherwise, looks amazing, gonna give it a whirl after work.
Turns out mild loathing towards users isn't unique to software.
But did this treaty get passed the EU Parliament?
Three years later, Mr. Moore is still letting us punt on database sharding
"then I'd come back the next day to realize it was a stupid" I couldn't agree with that more!! Come back and you find out all you had to do was restart the 'Rails Server' or simply mis-spelled something.
You can have more fun if you mix up the length of the 9's.

For example, 1/9999/99 = 1/989901 = .00 00 01 01 02 02 03 03 ... 97 97 98 99 00 00 01 01 ...

1/999/9 = 1/8991 = .000 111 222 333 444 555 666 777 889 repeating.
In 2011 Google Spent $1.9 Billion Acquiring 79 Companies
Got it, thanks!

Answer: no - yes - no
You're 100% right about having something specific to work on. Going through tutorials doen't commit you to anything, and hence never compels you to keep going when things get tough.

The place where I stopped with Michael Hartl's tutorial was on the authentication chapter. I found that whole salt thing completely confusing. Later, I heard about Devise (and others), I thought—Ok, so I'll never actually need to know how to do this—but that's not true. Right on the Github page it says that Devise is complicated and not for beginners. In fact, I'm pretty sure it links back to Michael Hartl's article as an 'easy' way to implement authentication!

That's when I packed it in right there!

Thanks for the advice and for taking the time to write this stuff down. Your freelance site looks amazing for 12 weeks work. Great stuff.
Mechanical Turk tutorial with Python and boto
> Come back and you find out all you had to do was restart the 'Rails Server'

Ha! Hilarious. That's happened so many times.
Thanks Dave, I'll fix it ASAP
HP Enyo Has Joined The Movement
Yahoo's five biggest acquisition screw-ups
Freemium Pricing on the Rise
you should look up the word apocrypha some time.
in my country, the biggest sections in bookstores are self-help and "how you get rich [really really fast]"
Yes, sorry, Caplin server's didn't expect the load! It's being worked on.
These difficulties in C are not "craziness", they are for very good reasons.

Unbounded strings have much more complex and potentially less optimal semantics than bounded strings, need to be allocated in different ways, etc. C makes tight resource control possible, and to do that it sacrifices a lot of ease. You have to think about resources when programming. In many scenarios, this is a good thing.