skysight-inc/HackerNews huggingface dataset:
"Java, OpenOffice and MySQL are neat. Know anybody who's paid money for them?"

Yes. Java still makes money for Sun for embedded and mobile devices. The licensing costs for a mobile JVM are reasons why you see the rather unique approaches taken by Android.

Back in 2006, MySQL had $60 million in revenue, so someone's paying for it. Not sure about OpenOffice (or Star Office, that is).
Samsung M110 (Unlocked)
Samsung M110 is one of the latest mobile handsets launched by Samsung in the last few months.It is a lightweight handset of 95g, which has been introduced with a CSTN display of 65K colors to brighten up your life vividly.
Actually, they have. There are observations with the Spitzer space telescope infrared spectrograph of planets occulting their star, where if I'm not mistaken one could see something like methane absorption signatures of the atmosphere of the planets. That's not very surprising, since these are Jupiter-like planets and they have methane clouds in their atmosphere.
India had nuclear weapons since 1974.
Again, Sun makes more money from Java than people realize. Maybe not a huge amount, but licensing the embedded and mobile JVM still brings in revenue. This is why Sun put the JVM under the GPL the way it did, so it can continue to license commercial versions of Java to handset manufacturers.
I believe Sun can, but they have to decide to try.
Yes, a clear distinction between the two is necessary before talking can even begin between the two sides. Once that happens, then we can do this right.

However, there is still the linguistic problem: do we still call both forms 'marriage,' or do we restrict the term only to the former? Either way, we're going to upset somebody. I don't think anyone would be willing to use the monikers 'marriage1' and 'marriage2.'
Yeah, if you mean "detail on the planet" and not just resolve the planet from its star, then it's completely infeasible. The current 30m-class telescopes that are under development (ie www.tmt.org) in combination with high-contrast adaptive optics will make it possible to see earth-size planets, if I'm not mistaken, but not to resolve detail on their surface.
To what extent did the publicity contribute to his success though?
All I can say is, congratulations! Most small businesses never even come close to where you are now.
lol...offer them for sale. That's how much inventory we hope to have. Currently there are $1 billion worth of tickets offered for sale on TicketStumbler (we don't own the tickets, just like Expedia doesn't own the air planes).

Shit man, if we had $2 million in sales already I'd be on an island somewhere. It'd be 99% profit.
At that rate, MySQL should pay itself off for Sun by 2025. Any bets on if Sun will be around? ;-)
Way to go with berating your potential audience.

"That is fine, there are many big name, high sponsor vendor conferences out there where you can hear the redundancy of the corporate drone."

False choice. I appreciate it when anyone takes the time and trouble to put on a conference; it's a LOT of work. But you may be shooting yourself in the foot if you take the attitude that the only choices are "corporate drone" and your special personal take on "edgy" (another word that, like "rockstar", is best avoided).

"Take it or leave it."

Be careful what you wish for. Unless this is just some vanity project you may want to get a better feel for what the various JavaScript communities would like to see.
Learning when (not) to Advertise
" ... serious, light weight alternative to Rails. "

These have existed for 5 years now. What makes Merb of interest is that it is a cleaner Rails.
early adopter under-30s have become impervious to web advertising. the clickthrough rates are just dismal. yahoo and aol cater to the trailing edge...you know, the people dumb enough to click a banner ad. thats why they make money with content (non-search) ads.

fb should consider a nominal monthly fee for advanced features (a la flickr). my guess is that the service has become sticky enough to turn the screws ever so slightly on users. barring a subscription, i don't see them ever making a lot of money....unless they just go to a cpm model and advertisers just give up on clickthrough
Ruby is not a good language though. It's not consistent, it's not lexically scoped, it's slow and it's std library is immature.

There are similar arguments aginst Python, but less so.

As far as strong benefits of clojure: concurrency, it's lisp, it has libraries, it interoperates with Java.
it's easy to make enough to keep it sustained

a bit harder to make money off it

and almost impossible to make the kind of money they are EXPECTING to make off it (see company valuation)

it was overhyped and now it will struggle to meet the expectations of its investors
"Think about how the definition of "fast" gets redefined every 18 months to to years. And how what was "fast" is now "slow"."

What?? Do you know what definition means? The definition of fast has never changed. Absolute values you might be measuring have.

Hopefully my children won't grow up with gay "marriage", they'll grow up with "marriage", and "gay marriage/union/whatever they want to call it". That's an important distinction.
Sometimes you have to upset someone to do the right thing.

I'm sure slave owners were upset when we abolished slavery, but we did it anyway because it was the right thing to do.
Right, yeah. It just doesn't seem like Ticketstumbler will necessarily become more valuable just by increasing inventory. (So why use that fact as a bullet point when describing why Ticketstumbler will become valuable?) Increasing inventory is necessary but not sufficient.

Your best bet is probably to focus on ways to differentiate Ticketstumbler. For example, what reasons are there for me to buy a ticket through Ticketstumbler than from any other source? Etc.
Here's an ISRO page with more details - http://www.isro.org/pressrelease/Nov14_2008.htm
Adobe CS4: Yet another lousy Adobe installer
"The day hardware is free, is a very very sad day for programmers."

It may be a sad day for those of you who program primarily for the challenge, but for those of us who want to get stuff done, it'll be a joyous day. :)
It is obviously a large part, but he did not get that publicity automatically. It seems he worked out and implemented a very effective strategy for getting that publicity organically. So, plenty of hard work and ingenuity involved there as well.
who else is astounded that sun employs more than 30k people???
Just to be clear, you're seriously arguing that homosexual marriage will lead to more out of wedlock births and divorce among homosexual couples?
Samsung E2510 Unlocked
Samsung E2510 operates in four bands GSM, given the camera VGA, FM-tuner, music player supports a memory card, microSD. The phone has 15 MB internal memory, which can be expanded up to 2 GB, internal 1.9-inch TFT-display with a resolution 128h160.
Weekend Project: Get Your Open Source Media Center Groove On
Sun Cuts Workforce, and Spins an OpenOffice Riddle
Nothing about how smart they are, but how they make their argument. To answer whether or not something is "strong" ('financials,' for example) comes down to "no it's not" -- "yes it is" -- "is not!" -- etc-- with the majority opinion actually trying to laugh the guy off. The "right" answer goes to the better showman. It's really E! television with the economy as the topic.

What's annoying is that millions of people will be influenced by this kind of nonsense. /buries head back in sand
yup. sun is a bespoke tech firm in an era of relentless commoditization.

my guess is that they only cling to life on support contracts from people who are still solaris/sparc shops (which i imagine they are still quite a few of)
A scientific formula for popularity on Digg, YouTube
Magnetic discs:

I agree with you that it ought to be possible in principle, although I find it unlikely that data recovery companies would pass up revenue when they're quite able to do it. The only explanation to me would be that they're being paid off by somebody, e.g. governments, but again... WHY? My theory is that it used to be possible, back when the data density was much lower, larger chunks of material were involved.

SSDs:

I would have thought that decoupling the flash chips from the controller logic is the easiest way to get at any hidden data. You'll have to piece the data together unless you can reverse-engineer the load-balancing algorithm, although there won't be much left after one pass of zeroing anyway. I have my doubts that you can get at residual charge from previous bit values in a useful way.
You're probably right that it was a symptom not a cause.
Once the legal separation between civil and religious marriage is properly made, the semantic issue automatically becomes less contentious because of the differences between religious groups. That is, marriage1 will no longer mean just marriage between one man and one woman because there will be plenty of churches that will allow other combinations. Marriage2 will become the basis of the laws in society, and Marriage1 will become specific to each church. Instead of saying Marriage1, one might say Catholic marriage or Shiite marriage.
forming binding contracts to create viable economic units for raising small children.

The purpose of government is to limit its own power and extinguish violence. Where exactly is that part in the constitution about stepping in to optimize GDP or influence child raising decisions?
Data and Code at the Application Level
It's valuable because the more ticket providers we have, the cheaper prices will be and the better seats we'll have. This certainly has a limit, but I don't think we're there yet, especially since we don't even have theater tickets.

The real value in Kayak wasn't that it included the big airlines, it was that it includes Southwest (not included anywhere else), Frontier, Airtran and many long tail airlines and forces the big airlines to compete. I traveled 250k miles in the past two years and often found myself on no-name airline flights that I would have never heard of if it wasn't for Kayak. And it has a super clean UI, isn't spammy and doesn't charge fees.

Our value is/will be: clean UI, no TicketStumbler fees (we're free!), no Ads on the main site, simple to use, natural language search and user dashboards & interactive maps (both coming soon).
One note about Id and their open source: they "only" release the source for their old engines, the most recent one is closed and licensed.

Giving something away -after- it has earned you a billion is less risky than doing it -before- you've earned the money.
And yet, being an internet celebrity is most valuable.
Obama carbon nanotube structures, seen with electron telescope
The case for bailing out the U.S. auto industry
Have you tried Fry's? http://www.frys.com/ IIRC, they don't have any locations in the city, but you could visit one of their silicon valley stores.
Understanding Gen Y Narrative: The Transformer Generation
Developing for the iPhone
Great food for thought. But I would not so lightly consider suing as the answer to anything. It's really really expensive, it distracts you from what you really want to be doing and it grinds your nerves to a pulp.
Do you think you would be closer to typical investors if you had "rolling admissions" like they do?
"People aren't using the hardware you're building. So stop building it."
Also see Hive, developed at Facebook:

http://wiki.apache.org/hadoop/Hive

http://www.facebook.com/note.php?note_id=16121578919
Zed Shaw responds to DHH's Ruby Myths
I've heard this criticism frequently of late. Very few Facebook widgets are going to improve the human condition (Scrabulous aside, of course). I wonder if the problem is related to such businesses requiring more emphasis on physical products, interfaces to external groups and labor and other things which turn off start-ups or raise the cost barrier. I don't know, but it's worth thinking about what the extra barrier might be and how to knock it down. I would bet the answer is not a lack of compassion, but something to do with the general requirements. The barrier couldn't be lower, these days, for a Facebook app but of course a good challenge is one that leaves a huge distance behind you to the next competitor.
Because a) nobody provides these services free, b) HE has very competitive prices, and c) their location doesn't matter.
Chatte på chattesider i Norge
E-chatt.no er en norsk informasjonside om chatt på nettet. Her finns informasjon om hva norske og engelske chatteforkortelser og chattesymboler betyr med mere. Tips og råd om chatt.
The original DHH post and HN discussion here - http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=362979
There's still a problem about the "factory fresh" feeling : when you turn a brand new Mac on for the first time, you also have iLife already installed. I always specify to people I sell my Mac to that iLife is ready. Here's how to complete the "factory fresh effect" :

- When you have just shut the computer down after the introduction video, reboot it in Target Mode pressing cmd-T (hey, you're not already selling a unibody MacBook, so there still is a Firewire port!).
- Connect another Macintosh with a Firewire cable. The old one is mounted just like an external hard drive. An expensive 2GHz Core 2 Duo external hard drive.
- Use that Macintosh to drag'n'drop iLife suite into the old MacBook's Applications folder.
- "Et voilà !"
"There's nothing suboptimal about a stable same-sex family for raising children."

Seriously? You don't see any value in having both a male parent and a female parent?
Good question. It makes you wonder what the electronics in that room think, as well.

Granted that's not the data center itself, it's in an adjacent human-friendly workspace, but even those computers can't be too wild about mist/smoke.
Agreed. For other "i read the comments first" people like me, here is the useful part (do not upmod me:)

Our growth has slowed a bit this year, but business is better than ever. We’ve been doubling revenues every year since 2004, so even a little slowdown still means big growth. We’re still profitable, still debt free, have no need to make any staff cuts, have no need to make any development cuts, and have no need to cancel any new projects.

Each one of our products has grown nicely since last year. Backpack’s monthly revenues have doubled this year thanks to the multi-user version launch in February. The newly launched Deals feature in Highrise has had a real positive impact on sales as well. Campfire continues to grow modestly and Basecamp continues its healthy climb towards its fifth birthday on February 4, 2009.
It's valuable because the more ticket providers we have, the cheaper prices will be and the better seats we'll have.

Yeah, that's true. What I'm saying is, that by itself isn't enough to be successful. Because of your next point, actually:

I traveled 250k miles in the past two years and often found myself on no-name airline flights that I would have never heard of if it wasn't for Kayak.

That example is a very different from a preppy highschooler
buying a ticket to a concert. For one, you had to travel. If all of a sudden there weren't any airplanes, it would still be necessary for you to travel. But it's not necessary for people to go to concerts.

Also, consider the number one reason why people go to concerts: because their friends are going. So one way to differentiate yourself from the competition might be to offer group discounts, for example. You could even sell them at a loss for awhile, just so you can use that as a way to market Ticketstumbler. Like "Going out tonight? Stumble into your next concert with Ticketstumbler. The more friends you bring, the more cash you'll save."

What I'm saying is, try not to hyperfocus on making Ticketstumbler like Kayak. It isn't, and can't be. So those types of comparisons are a good way to communicate to someone about what Tickestumbler does, but are a bad design way to design the company.
Appreciate the comments and you are right, I need to be less aggressive. If you don't mind me being a bit of a revisionist, let me turn it back and open the question back in a different way. Assuming there was an open forum to delve into some of the deep technical and community aspects of JavaScript, what would you identify as some of them?
I'm not asking to start a flamewar or anything, but I do not see the relevance for HN. Please, if someone else disagrees, reply so I can grok. :)
>For one, you had to travel.

Not true. 100k of those miles were done for personal stuff (family, friends, vaca, etc).

The number one reason people go to concerts is because they like music, but I see what you're saying. The challenge isn't just helping people find friends to go with, it's helping them find music to listen to and making them aware when their favorite bands are in town.

The aforementioned user dashboards and interactive maps will eventually have everything else you mentioned.

We've never "hyperfocused" on making TicketStumbler like Kayak, which is why we have four blogs, a news site, directory listings (not just search), a video site and are much more open about what we do than Kayak. Also, one of our next projects will be completely out of left field (as to how we relate to Kayak). I think you really get what we're trying to do though so thanks a lot for your feedback. If you have anymore suggestions my email is in my profile.
Yeah, that's a great point. I'm just saying that if someone clones your product and it actually harms you, then you do have a way of putting a stop to that, even if it's an expensive fight.
I thought the same thing.

Where is a picture or some other direct or indirect evidence. Not only does it help prove that you did it but it's great for all the inevitable media coverage. NASA has seemed to have learned this over they years; they always come up with some graphic or image for their big releases.

After checking out the wiki article:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chandrayaan-1

I found out it does have a camera. And that it's been tested:

http://www.isro.org/pressrelease/Oct31_2008.htm
This is what happens when you let the tech staff design the data center ;-)

I bet they have awesome laser tag breaks.
Wow! Zed's story is consistent and potentially damning. I look forward to DHH's reply.
37Signals blog always sounds very defensive.
The one with the weevil ("snout is just over 100 microns wide") blows me away too.
Neat trick.
yeh, "the orbiter has to come back around to this side of the moon before we can get a transmission of the recorded event" was the answer i got in my research of it.

pfah, a likely excuse... :D
Warner Bros. Cartoons (The Story)
Controlling robots with your mind
I don't think open-sourcing an entire product is a good idea (at least on launch). However, open-sourcing components (such as your internal tools, file specs, libraries, etc) can add as much value to the open source ecosystem while preserving your competitive advantages.
Hehe, I'm sorry if I came off as critical. I really respect what you have achieved with Ticketstumbler.

Yeah, people go to concerts to listen to good music. But in the same way you don't typically go to a bar just to get drunk, people don't typically go to a concert just for the music. Socializing with friends is a very strong force that compels people to actually drop $50+ on a concert ticket.

Also, it probably won't be beneficial to try to help find new friends for people to go with. IMO, it would be kind of creepy to stand next to a total stranger for an hour if it "felt like" we should be talking and getting to know each other. :)
The product is valuable because of the thousands of small decisions you made as you were developing the product. The source code is just the manifestation of those decisions. In other words, the product is valuable because of its design, not because of the source code that describes that design. Just because someone has access to a product's source code doesn't mean they can make valuable decisions about it.

That's the key insight of Peter Naur's classic article "Programming as Theory Building". (That's Naur as in BNF.) He starts with the question: why is it that code, even well-written code and even well-documented code (rare as that is) isn't sufficient to allow a new team to effectively take over development of a system? His answer: the program is not the source code, but rather a shared mental construct (he says "theory", you said "design") that lives in the minds of the people who made it. Source code is a textual representation of that construct, but it's a lossy one. So if you lose all the original people, it's hard to reconstruct the program.

Edit: I posted the article to YC ages ago but that link is broken. You can get it here: http://web.archive.org/web/20080209152318/http://www.zafar.s...
Gold did go up to about 1k/oz earlier this year. Check price of ticker GLD (which was his recommendation) around March.

http://www.bostonherald.com/business/general/view.bg?article...

Now metals have gone down tremendously and the dollar is getting stronger, but his prediction was right.
In the case of crypto/security, open sourcing your algorithms and protocols can be a big win. You get free vetting of the security of your system. If you use LGPL or another suitable license, then you can still keep other parts of your product closed. Those are the parts that actually give your product "polish" and add the most value.

(I am considering doing this for a password vault app.)
put your head down and focus on making a great product, everything else will follow

And market the hell out of it.

The Balsamiq approach to marketing (market the success story) is quite similar to that of 37Signals, actually, and both essential and very effective.
HN is about startups/entrepreneurship. I could see a few angles. If the auto giants are chopped up and doled out, the individual product lines could be of interest. The auto giants have massive supply chains--these may touch the HN community who are involved in the space or who provide productivity services to these companies that might cut back as a result. Also, general insight into the political reaction to large businesses and the ability to produce desirable products and sustainable business models might be of interest as well.
While you mention that many of the benefits of keeping the source closed are either false or unimportant to you, you don't really give any compelling reason to open the source.

Your argument for open sourcing your product is simply "why not?" rather than "why" :)
The current economy offers every company a convenient excuse!
Some other options: You could open source the engine, but not code that is specific to the game (then people couldn't run the game). For a legal distinction, you can also make source available, without making it open source. e.g. "look, modify but don't redistribute." See the creative commons licenses. Or make it available only to buyers of the software.

A benefit to open sourcing the engine: it would make it possible to become a platform, with other games built on it - and the publicity etc could help you. (Of course, open-sourcing isn't enough to automatically have your platform adopted - you'd have to promote it and work at it. More work!)

BTW: your art assets are copyrighted automatically. You don't have to do anything (in the past this was necessary in some jurisdictions).

The vast majority of companies choose not to open source their products. It's therefore hard to draw conclusions from what happens to those that do. Please forgive me for this parody, it's for illustration purposes only: can you find just one example of a company that failed or was harmed because they exploded a hydrogen bomb in their head office?

balsamiq on piracy: http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=337821

esr discusses id's decision (near the end) in the section "when to be open, when to be closed": http://www.catb.org/~esr/writings/cathedral-bazaar/magic-cau...