skysight-inc/HackerNews huggingface dataset:
i agree, for the most part. i like c++ as well.

i made a stab at learning ruby. i felt lost without compiler warnings and errors. here's how i change the name of a method: 1. change the name in the header file, 2. hit the compile button, and 3. fix every error the compiler spits out, by double-clicking on the error lines in an ide window. i guess the ruby alternative would be search-and-replace, but it's not nearly as foolproof.

i wish c++ were a little less complex, though. i think we're to the point where the language has been balkanized into dialects. there's a lot of c++ code i can't read at all, because the authors used idioms that i choose to avoid.
Looks like someone was trying to be a little too cute or just plain bored.
Gmail is safe, as long as you avoid falling for phishing scams
I fail to see why this is news. I assumed it was pretty well known within the neuroscientific community that the physiological structure of the brain not only influenced personality, but actually contained and, in essence, was the personality.
I have to salute the Baseshields for their imagination. Originally the virtualization sw was going to be the product. Might still be. But then they realized that, having built it, they could basically take over the delivery of software on Windows. I was blown away when Patrick came by YC to give me a demo. I thought I was going to be seeing a demo of virtualization sw, which, frankly, is not that interesting, and instead they'd built the Windows App Store.
The followup to http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=372699, which incorrectly claimed that Gmail was open to cross-site attacks.
According to http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Memristor
it would probably be utilized as
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Crossbar_latch
To me it is not newsworthy because of who wrote it: the name of the author is just a predictor of quality. If the predictor is wrong in this particular case, tell me about it, and then I'll be willing to hear why it is wrong in general. He may have become famous undeservedly; it doesn't matter as long as this particular article is good.
GeorgesCantor and BusyBeaver also replied.
The virtualization layer only supports user mode applications; kernel mode drivers unfortunately won't work. Services are not yet supported but support may be added in the future.
This could also be why Mr. Bonds doesn't like Anime. The hook is the sense of motion, tension, and action that can be conveyed. A lot of the other aspects of Anime shows are bad, however. Then again, you can say the same for any given genre of books or for cinema in general.
It's of no use. I've already decided against running for office.
I don’t think that would necessarily be a bad thing. In fact, we’re pretty interested in seeing how we can tie MakeFive into other sites. If it turns out that the content our users create gets discussed on Digg/Reddit, or another site for that matter, all the better. (That just means more traffic to MakeFive, which makes us happy!)
Finally, maybe now the music executive will start to "get it".
"In other words, if you decide to make your end-user software open source, most of your users probably won't even notice!"

So, why do it then? The two points made by this article don't really motivate me.

1) "Selling closed source software is roughly analogous to selling someone a car with the hood welded shut."

First of all, we are not selling cars. Software is sold more like an HDTV, dvd player, mp3 player, etc. How many of those products really make it easy for you to fix it yourself? The answer is: It doesn't matter. These are throw away products. If it stops working for you, buy a new piece of software or an upgrade.

Don't give away your product just to please a couple of gear-head customers that can code.

2) "Your source code,...is very likely completely uninteresting to almost everyone else."

This is such a bullshit statement. The fact is that while my source code may not be that special, it's ALREADY DONE. If I don't open source it then potential competitors have to spend the time to get to where I am at.
I don't have a friend at cisco but I have friends in other large name companies and usually when they force shut down (esp. around the holidays) It comes out of the employees vacation days.
If I'm ever in their situation, I hope I spend less energy on misleading rhetoric and more on improving my product.
In terms of automating the variations, that can be done ahead of time with photoshop scripting/etc, and then leaving it up to the adserver's optimization algorithms to serve the best-performing creative.

e.g. http://www.rightmedia.com/solutions/ad-server/

Then there are the folks doing personalized dynamic text/etc on ads, e.g:

http://mediaplex.co.uk/dynamic_messaging.shtml
http://advertising.yahoo.com/marketing/smartads/
Major Google Maps Redesign
agree totally, likewise for music, I try hard to avoid any knowledge about artists I like life, it invariably colors there work in my mind.

I don't think it's possible to create something that is different without being a little unusual. Could anyone work a nine to five job be a good stable citizen and then come home and write a stephen king novel, or an enders game?

Phillip K Dick is an example that always springs to mind, he wrote so many books, and was diagnosed with mental disease. I have read a quote that aliens dictated his books to him, can't track it down now. Where would Hollywood be without an endless supply of phillip K. Dick novels?

Robin Williams has been diagnosed manic depressive, when he take his medication he is no longer funny he has said.

The idea that creativity is neatly pigeon holed without spilling over into the rest of your life, for good or bad, is just as nonensical as that review (I always thought the book was a standard teenage angst sort of thing).
My reading comprehension is fine, it's just that about the only arguments he finds to be ad hominem are those claiming ad hominem.

Although the article could have been much shorter if he simply defined ad hominem as "You're an asshole and therefore wrong."
It has less to do with cutting into your sales, and more with jeopardizing your IP and ownership rights. If this sort of theft is left unattended, the other side may start asserting its non-existing rights and escalate the situation.

It all really comes down to the risk tolerance. Opening the source establishes great deal of a goodwill towards your customers and potentially provides you with an access to free improvements and bugfixes. On other hand it opens you to the risk of needing to actively protect your IP rights, which is something that not everyone want or can do.

That's not even getting into how emotionally draining these incidents can be. It requires a really thick skin and a strong ability to ignore being taken an advantage of. Again, not everyone's traits.
My company sells their software worldwide, so yes, it will cut into my sales.

Also, I sell telephony software so I don't need any more legitimacy or recognition.
"There is no dramatic tension or genuine excitement about any of these encounters" .. yet he also says
"The disturbing thing about Ender's Game is that Card is a good craftsman of prose; he makes the pages turn, he's an effective manipulator." How do you get readers rushing to turn pages when there's no dramatic tension or involvement with what the reviewer declares "blank" characters?

The reviewer neglects the structure of the academy breeding competition, instead assuming that everybody hated Ender just because he was better than them. The school is a crucible and it's not just Ender that's under pressure. I could go on here, but it seems like the reviewer's distaste for the author's viewpoints has heavily influenced how he read the book and interpreted the themes.
IBM Reveals Five Innovations That Will Change Our Lives in the Next Five Years
Doesnt Pascal's wager type of argument apply here?
Opening the source has very little benefit in most cases while opening the source presents a very real danger of clones.
I can't speak to your situation, but I have a feeling that most graduate schools in engineering and science don't care that much about your verbal score if you're a native English speaker.
Feedback Army: website feedback for $7, inspired by HN post
1. It's a rough analogy as I said, and honestly I don't think either the car analogy or the consumer electronic analogy is a good one. Most software is not a commodity, and unlike a DVD player, if it breaks you don't just go out and get a new one. At the very least you fix it so you can figure out how to get your data out of it. And of course, software isn't exactly a physical thing, either, so both analogies break down even further.

2. Any legal competitor who uses your source code will have to abide by the exact same open source license (unless it's BSD), meaning that you can incorporate any improvements they make directly into your original product.
Bulverism is not a valid form of argument. I would likely sing a different tune were I currently on fire, so I fail to see your point.
What trends can entrepreneurs leverage to create new businesses?
And if had been "Adam Smith reviews: Here Comes Everybody" then it would be newsworthy.

The "Founder of Capitalism" would have valuable thoughts about Coases Ceiling (and book reading zombies would also be newsworthy (to me at least))
Video: G-Speak: James Bond technology will consign the mouse to history
So perhaps yours is a case in which open source doesn't make sense. My thesis wasn't that it always makes sense, but simply that micro-ISV developers should rationally consider whether it does in their particular business.
This is the second thing I've read from this site that's all "Blah blah blah. I'm so clever. Blah blah blah." Except it takes him a lot longer than three sentences to convey this. Am I the only one who finds this guy to be a pompous faux-intellectual who confuses length with depth.
I can't say.. I picked a theme and haven't changed it.
Oh man I wish comments were enabled on his post...
RubyConf 2008 Videos Now Available
If the source is open, then anyone who bases a product on it has to abide by the license. Are you talking about the case of someone who downloads the source, and bases a derived product on it without abiding by the license and releasing the source code? Can't illegal distribution happen with closed source software as well? Or are you saying it's more likely to happen if the source is open, and therefore more of a potential headache?
Why is this comment downmodded? This isn't digg people.
You will never know how many people actually know stackoverflow. If that is the case, why don't everyone grab stories from buzz, mixx or digg and post them here?
>It's a wonderfully guilt-free massacre, mass murder with a clear conscience

I take it the reviewer didn't read the sequels?
We bash Ruby because we love it so.
Ask HN:  How do you block Persistent Identification Elements?
I'm rather embarrassed to admit this, but I just learned of the existence of PIEs a couple of hours ago. I checked my rig, and, yup, there's history information being kept on my computer. I did a rm -f on the #SharedObjects directory, and a chmod 555, but I was wondering: is there a better way to deal with it? (Also, basically just for my ego, am I the only one who didn't know about these things?)
Good article, I liked what he wrote about the GNU tools and package management. At my last try a few weeks ago I failed with OpneSolaris again because of they ancient GCC version to compile the necessary software elements, SUN's cc failed on that code with a different problem while it's just fine on Linux or a OSX.
You've lost the plot. A discussion about whether Adam Smith's point of view about Clay Shirkey is interesting is a valid topic of conversation; the dispute here is that someone on HN thinks it wouldn't be.
Is Microsoft making a Zune smartphone?
I'm not attacking you. You obviously just have a different perspective than me on this issue. That's why we have comments.
He needs (and you (if you haven't) need) to read Ender's Shadow. Bean's POV offers lots of important clarification and insight to Card's interpretation of "love thy enemy." It's a much more interesting read but is just as enjoyable as Ender's Game, but don't read one without reading the other (IF you intend to write an essay such as this, rather than enjoy the story at face value).
Nice to see a good explanation (if a little painstaking) of this. "Ad hominem" is fast becoming the new Godwin ...

Having said that, I hope that people don't think this gives everyone license to abuse each other. Regardless of whether it's part of your argument, insulting or ridiculing someone rarely helps progress an argument forward.
1. I agree that both analogies break down. However, my point stands: Just because a consumer can't fix a product themselves doesn't make the product inherently evil or bad or anything like that.

2. Okay, but that doesn't really address my point. If you don't open source the software in the first place then there are less potential competitors and therefore more potential money for your business.

Look at how well Salesforce does against SugarCRM. Which one do _you_ want to be?
Yes I know that. However, that's a binary switch. I want to read some subjective questions. A feature like reddit's hide would be great.
I didn't know Atlantic still existed.
Do significant digits matter in these sort of probability calculations?

Secondly, do we want doctors to tell us the probablility estimate that we have cancer or do we want doctors to tell us Yes or No?

Personally, I don't care what my probability score is if the answer is "No". Even if the answer was "Yes", an optimistic person would ignore the odds anyway.
An Open Letter to Dell Customer Service
Ugh. My kingdom for a submission down arrow.

Citing Jesus and mocking Christianity as part of reviewing Ender's game totally jumps the shark. This is such an obvious troll, I am utterly disappointed that Hacker News has collectively up-modded this close to the top of the front page (as I write this). I thought this community was better than this.
since we're on the subject - what do you guys think of the essay 'Ender and Hitler: Sympathy for the Superman'?

http://peachfront.diaryland.com/enderhitlte.html

Summary: Ender's Game is an apologia for Hitler.
Solar-powered sea-slugs live like plants
How do you throw them away in svn? If you have changes in your working copy, you can't throw the merge away without throwing those away. Hence the pain.
Do significant digits matter in these sort of probability calculations? Yes, but no more than normal.

.0051 x .8 / (.0051 x .8 + (.99 x .096)) ~= 4.1%

.0149 x .8 / (.0149 x .8 + (.99 x .096)) ~= 11%

But, when dealing with cancer those are about the same as 8% aka I want to double check with more tests not having someone cut me open.

PS: Be it 99.9999 or .0001% doctors only ever know a probability. Which is why they want to "run more tests".
Hmm, I've never heard of the term Bulverism before. Interesting.

Based on the definition on Wikipedia, I'm not sure my statement qualifies as Bulverism. The definition says that I assume your statement is wrong. What I did was state that if a certain condition exists, you might have a different opinion, which is to say that I assume your current statement is correct. If I misunderstood the meaning of Bulverism, please let me know.
That's nice, but I don't think we are having that argument right now.
I'm not sure, but I think she was trying to be ironic (or perhaps irony is the wrong word. sarcastic?)
Suppose the analysis program is given an input that fails to terminate. The client expects your program to indicate this fact after a finite time, but your program will not be able to do so in the general case.

In any case, looking at individual test cases is not the point. The client is justified in asking for a proof that your program detects non-termination for all possible input programs in the language. Since no such proof can exist, you don't get paid. The burden of proof is on the person proposing the solution, not the client.
Can you give an example of where it does make sense?

I'll venture a guess that you probably think that it made sense for Digium to open source Asterisk. At first, it did seem to make sense since they made the telephony cards that it worked with the best.

However look at them now. Sangoma, Pika, NxtVox and many other companies are making cheaper telephony cards that work just as well as Digium's do. Now what does Digium do? They start selling a closed source version of Asterisk that has more features in it than the open source one.

Open source is really nice for users but not so much for long term business profits.
1. All morality aside, you can decide to open source or not based on simple cost-benefit analysis. Will your customers be more likely to make the purchase if the source is available? Will you get more contributions and goodwill if the source is available? If the answer to both questions is definitely no, then I think you have your answer for your particular product.

2. I don't think it's as simple as saying there are fewer competitors if your product is closed source, and therefore more money for you. If all your competitors base their product off of yours, then you have a strong case to make (to your prospective customers) that you are the market leader and everyone else is just a wannabe follower.

And even with more competitors, that doesn't necessarily mean you're losing out on sales. Competitors can also expand markets, increase awareness/legitimacy for the type of product you're selling, and as I mentioned, improve the product if it's open source.

In regards to Salesforce and SugarCRM, I'm not familiar with the product space. But I assume you're suggesting that in that particular case, Salesforce is more successful, and therefore closed source is preferable. That may be the case with those particular products, however there are a lot of factors that go into running a successful company beyond whether the source code is freely available.
This might have been better as an email to one's executive team, rather than a public blog post.

I'm not convinced about being a deployment platform. Sun's repeatedly been eaten from below by "cheaper" alternatives of arguably lower quality (whether Wintel, Linux, etc.). I'm not sure I buy that focusing on incremental quality/performance improvements is going to be a winner now either.
Google Maps and Street View Undergo Awesome Redesign
Try rereading stranger in a strange land or any other book you loved as a teen and it's not going to stand up to what you remember.

Anyway, the amount of open hostility displayed by children shapes how you view the world. As an adult you rarely feel you are surrounded by monsters, but most young people feel this way. I think this is why overt violence is so appealing to young people they live in it's shadow everyday and it becomes what you know.
I think the article is valid discussion point. Getting rid of things you disagree with, or you feel are wrong is like burning books because they do not agree with your ideology.

There are very few movies with 100% positive ratings, because people always disagree. If a person disagrees eloquently, then he should be given forum to make his point. Diversity of opinion is the engine for progress.
Yeah. I always thought that the best part about Ender's Game was how it worked as a critique on academics. Getting older, the "who's to blame for genocide" bit got old, but the part that remained strong was the sequence about how the different groups approach academics and the game, and how kids brought up in high-competitive schools become very obsessive, rarely for any good reason.
I don't know about any teen book. I still love Diana Wynne Jones books for the same reason I loved it when I first read it: because of her ability to weave a very dense-but-accessible story out of a fascinating concept. I also still love Asimov and Herbert.

It depends on the sort of read it is. Ender's Game is a book that has an emotional impact on you when you first read it, but not a very intellectual one. Stories that base their punches on emotions without firm concepts don't hold up as well.
I don't know.. Having worked with the Digium source code before, I almost would rather that they had kept it to themselves. :)

Simply put, I think open source can make sense in products where the benefits (contributions/fixes, goodwill, marketing, increased customer comfort and therefore sales) outweigh any downsides (clones, etc).

One reason I made the post to begin with is because I don't think there are enough examples out there. Not because they can't be successful, but because there is a culture of fear of open source. Fear that your product will be ripped off, fear that you'll lose control of its development, and so on.

In many cases, those fears are unfounded. So I'm trying to develop my particular product as one example of software where open source does make sense. And I hope other small business do so as well.
After a 15-30 minute caffeine nap I feel more motivated and efficient. If on a given day I'm in a rut or the words/work aren't flowing, I'll almost always take a quick nap & snap out of it.

My personal experience with coffee is that it ruins my appetite and sometimes gives a caffeine hangover (though it's minor). When I take it with a nap this doesn't happen.

Also, I almost always try to take a nap with a problem or idea in my head. I usually wake up with new thoughts on it.
I respect that he can write a book without selling dogma. I love Enchantment and Pastwatch, even if the Ender series has faded with time.
I was just kidding about the reading comprehension. Mostly.

Here's an example he gave of an ad hominem attack that doesn't involve calling the other person's attack ad hominem:

A: "All rodents are mammals, but a weasel isn't a rodent, so it can't be a mammal."
B: "Well, you've never had a good grasp of logic, so this can't be true."

and here's another (from the Nick Naylor school of rhetoric):

A: "All rodents are mammals, but a weasel isn't a rodent, so it can't be a mammal."
B: "I'm sorry, but I'd prefer to trust the opinion of a trained zoologist on this one."
The secret of selling a million copies in any genre is having your main character suddenly find out that there's something that makes him different from everyone else. And the English language already has an excellent word to describe books/movies like this: masturbatory.
After misunderstanding such an obvious joke, I must disregard your argument as false.

PS: recursive ad hominem?
I think Harry Potter is on a level above Ender's Game in terms of ambition. Rowling does some pretty impressive things in her novels.

But in both cases, it helps to look at why the authors make their heroes despised. Card does it to isolate Ender, to force him into being brilliant when he really doesn't want to be a hero. That's the theme that underscores the original four books.

In Harry Potter, it's done because Rowling marks Harry as this object of perfect good. Not as a perfect character, mind you, but a character that serves as a metric against which the other characters are judged. And so Harry finds himself disliked by certain other groups throughout the series, and it's almost always used to illustrate a certain vicious aspect of personality (be it class/race warfare, or glory-seeking, or bureaucracy).
Yeah. If there is a reasonable suspicion that someone has attempted/wants to attempt to take their life, the police will take you in and do a 72-hour hold.