skysight-inc/HackerNews huggingface dataset:
Becuase those people are your customers, and you want them to upgrade to the next version of iphone instead of switch to another, superior phone.

I'm not saying there is a superior phone out there, yet, but this is one of the many features I'll be comparing when my current iphone contract is up. Most phone consumers are fickle -- apple will not be exempt from this in the future.
Of COURSE there is a digg for girls. In fact, of course there are 5. It's disheartening to realize how much has already been completely done to death.
Ye pine fore days long gone. I dost hope thou ist right and spellings shant e're change, Marcus.

Noone can think of a word that evolved in our lifetime already?
There are iPhone apps analytics/tracking companies -- Medialets for example -- with this kind of data.
I didn't know "suicide" was a business model.
Ouch. 750k is a drop in the bucket, unless you're a working stiff who bought stock that Cuban was selling fraudulently. Smoody's comment hit me like a punch in the face.
Jack Handey is a brilliant prosist. It's close between him and Dave Barry for my overall favorite: Barry's more prolific, Handey is much less hit-and-miss.
Maybe all that is needed is a non-binding proposal that the top 6 developers would, after the product reaches a particular milestone, band together and start a company, dividing shares however they choose.

I just think that having any plan for the future would make developers more likely to invest their scarce time.
There's still no permanent break for Blu Ray BD+; there are still titles that Slysoft can't play, and no evidence that the next Macrovision refresh won't stall Slysoft for months. You are drastically oversimplifying.
The article should be called "We Are Bloggers First, Programmers Second."
It seems like the author provides a counterexample in the article itself: `from foo import *` doesn't at all enforce good coding habits. Now, admittedly, Java (my language of choice) allows the same bad code, but it still contradicts the idea that Python enforces long-term readability.
OK Cupid is free and freemium, isn't it?

I think a free product or service is in trouble if it has to advertise.

Perhaps the quote should read: "Advertising is a tax for being unremarkable, and/or not free."
I suspect that would just motivate the MPAA to bog us down with more DRM.
Ah, I didn't see 1.8.1. Thanks. And you're right, Brahms broke iTunes 7.
I think Apple's counting on no company making a phone that's close to as good that also supports Flash. To be fair, so far no company's competing very well.
Leading VC (eg Sequoia) invest in Microfinance... again
Take that credit crunch!
And programming is nothing like reading and writing as you need reading and writing to be a functional adult.

...in today's society. But certainly long ago people could get by without knowing reading & writing.
I can’t imagine an ex-VC launching such a company without one.

Really??? He can't be serious here. I know a number of ex-VCs who have done this.
You don't allow for Safari 4? That's a shame: it's more stable than Safari 3 in a lot of ways, and I can't have both on my computer at once.
what ayn rand quote? I really worship ayn rand and completely agree with her that we should be as selfish as possible and who gives a shit about poor people when u r rich and they r not and vote republican because democrats are exactly like the cartoon villains in her book. I only wish she wrote a relationship advice column.

But i dont know what quote u r saying. Maybe I need to read through all 1,600 pages of her two novels again?
GM Management Fiddles Too
Naive people on Craigslist. Film at 11.
And Jobs headed the group of people in Pixar, including designing their work studio and financing their work.
Heh, for a moment there thought the article was about working in a large corporation ... instead of UAVs.
Fuck the police. An odd mix of sadistic bullies and good guys who cover for the bullies out of a misguided sense of kinship.

Viva la revolution!
Sixapart out to Save Poor Journalists
Not to mention the fact that he's got an incredible knack for deciding what works and what doesn't. Which might sound lame, but think of how many people decide that they like things that aren't superbly-made or who make decisions that lead to trouble. Jobs isn't perfect in this regard, but he picked the iPod design, the iPhone design, had the drive to push for both products, and has managed to bring together a bunch of genius minds with brilliant ideas and get them to work together. There is absolutely a talent for this, and Jobs is possibly the best at it there is.
> developers spend a lot of time typing things like API documentation, design proposals, e-mails, IMs, etc.

Here's what I've noticed about fast typists: They produce large volumes of hurried and poorly worded and edited crap. Yegge, my current boss, and one of my co-workers fit this mold. They type very fast, and I frequently have no idea what their writing is about, or am annoyed with the excess verbiage.

The best writing is re-writing. The best coding is refactoring. In both coding and writing the bottleneck is going through what you've written two or three times and making the necessary edits and stopping to think. First pass typing speed is absolutely not the bottleneck to producing anything of quality. If you want to churn out unreadable or unmaintainable crap, belting out functions at 90 wpm and then moving right on is a good way to go.
"Is that by design" - Well, yes and no. Try to forget the specific context for the moment.

It is by design that the default parameter to a function parameter is evaluated only once, as the alternative has bad performance implications.

It is by design that when you have a reference, that modifications to that value are still available on the same reference. (That is, Python has mutable objects with a couple of immutable exceptions.) This is obviously a fairly normal choice, very basic to the language design.

Now, take these two normal things together and you get that if you make your default function parameter a mutable object, it'll be the same mutable object every time. The relevant "import this" aphorism would be "Special cases aren't special enough to break the rules."

So, is this "by design"? Well, not directly, it's a natural consequence of other aspects of the design. All languages have corner cases of one sort or another. Making this an exception would itself be a wart, after all:

l = []
def f(param = l): pass
def g(param = []): pass

Shouldn't f and g have similar behavior? If you propose that the value be evaluated every time, they won't, and then people would complain about that, too.
Spread the Holiday Joy - Adopt a Family Through Compass
"import this": "Although practicality beats purity."

"from X import *" is for REPL usage, where it is damned handy, not to mention a 20-line script. The community strongly discourages its use in big programs.
Manage you shares effectively – Sharesight
An oldie but goodie. But, hasn't this been posted to HN before in some other format?

That "heaviness of being successful" line reminded me of "Annie Hall". "Did you achieve total heaviosity?"
"I don't like that there is no garbage collection on the iPhone, and that I have to write header files. The pointer stuff looks suspicious, too, but I have not read far enough to know how awful it will be."

If those are your only complaints, may I suggest Objective-J and Cappuccino... http://cappuccino.org ;)

We have garbage collection (it's just JavaScript underneath), no header files, and no raw pointers (again, just JavaScript objects).

But pointers in Objective-C aren't really a big deal, you just have to be sure to declare your variables with the "*". After that they're just like objects in any other dynamic language.

As far as the "pseudo-dynamic" claim goes, it is indeed an interesting mix of dynamic and static. You can add new methods (in "categories"), introspect objects for their methods, etc. If you don't want static typing just declare all your variables as "id".

The more I learn about Objective-C the more I find it to be a very elegant language. It's pretty amazing how 20 years ago they were able to take a very rigid non-dynamic language, C, and turn it into something so dynamic. Even 20 years later Objective-C and Cocoa are still very modern language/framework combo (granted it has been updated by Apple over the years).
Ask HN: When should a startup should use cash vs. accrual-basis accounting? 
Startups live and die by cashflow. It seems like 99% would therefore want to use cash basis accounting (it's dangerous to plan by revenue of receivables that may never come). When then is it appropriate for a startup to elect to use accrual-basis accounting?
I disagree. Writing and coding are much the same. I interpret the replies to this as saying you should hurry through this stuff. Just shovel the crap out.

Well, if it's not worth writing with some care then it's not worth writing at all. If it's worth writing with care, then your typing speed is not going to be the relevant bottleneck, unless we're talking about a hunt and peck typist.

I take it as given that anything one writes, whether code or English, should be read and edited three times before moving on. 80 wpm vs 50 wpm ain't gonna matter if you're doing this.
Why Yahoo's Jerry Yang stepped down
Homestarrunner.com has a pretty good 404 page: http://homestarrunner.com/404

Not helpful in any way suggested by the article, but a reasonable laugh for the site.
15 Helpful In-Browser Web Development Tools
> It is by design that the default parameter to a function parameter is evaluated only once, as the alternative has bad performance implications.

Do people actually use the results of long-running or side-effectful functions as default parameters? It seems the only time this issue comes up is when people get tripped up by mutating simple [] or {} default parameters.

I would expect a default expression to be simple and pure. If this expression should only be executed once, requiring a programmer to be explicit about the complexity wouldn't be a bad thing.
Newsweek's Dan Lyons quits blogging -- includes the full text of his five deleted posts
Ruby Deployment and Engine Yard as a Service
And latency. And bandwidth.
Completely off-topic, but why is it dated 24th November 2008?
Forums are notoriously bad for PPC advertising. Have you tried CPM? Affiliate stuff? Lots to choose from in the travel space beyond adsense.
I think there is news to report every step of the way. It would start with what needs to be done, and why the project is valuable, then move on to what is being done and what milestones are being hit.

All of these are definitely low value activities; the goal would simply be to reduce administrative overhead (time, not money). That way, contributors would spend more time doing the high value work and less time on BS. The goal would also be to foster a sense of community and make it easier for new members to join and get caught up on the big-picture goals of the project.
Sourceforge isn't some tiny non-profit that needs the help of EFF, etc. Sourceforge is a massive business with 50 million/year in revenue.
This reads like most startup business plans I've seen.
Manage Your API Infrastructure With 3scale Networks
Monitoring Memory
The best 404 page helps the user find what they were looking for. You can run a cron job on your server logs to analyze your log files for statistically significant problems (not just 404's); that script can report them all to you my email or SMS or whatever. Further, you can run cron jobs that crawl your site looking for broken links, and/or replay some of the previously-working GET requests; then you will find broken links even when nobody is using your site.
This is general CDN question: how does one enable compression for CDN-served resources?

In Apache I just enable mod_deflate or mod_gzip, or serve up a .gz and set the Content-Encoding to gzip.

Do CDNs offer this somehow?

Can I set arbitrary headers like Content-Encoding?

Also, does anyone have stats on which browsers support deflate and gzip encodings? I imagine the vast majority at this point do.
How to prevent the App Store from becoming the Crap Store
It's from the current print issue which I think they post-date so that it looks timely when it's sitting on the store shelves.
Another data point, John Battelle: http://twitter.com/johnbattelle/status/1010853874
I struggle with it more than I'd like...
Photos from 1750, are you really sure?
It can be a cute hack to get around the absence of static variables.

Lists have other quirks related to mutability; there are other obscure Pythonisms that use this. If you want a nice magic-free immutable container, tuples are a better bet.
This is really a good idea. Most journalists' tech savvy is on par with doctors. They also are having a hard time getting over their 200 years of dependence on big institutions to handle distribution, research services, and sales.

The public service journalists provide is as vital as ever. We should do what we can do to help them as the traditional business models dissolve.
One example answer is that if your gross margin is anything under 10%, you shouldn't spend $100m in advertising for $1mm in marginal revenue.

Doesn't happen often in software, of course.
Blame Yahoo the product. You can blame him for not selling to Microsoft but not the general lack cool products and the decline of the Yahoo brand.
The actual TypePad blog entry is at http://www.typepad.com/blogging/bailout.html
I still want to meet with Sequoia, haha
Vagueness, name dropping, [cargo cult entrepreneurship], hubris, and absurd sentences like 'If you have nothing better to do, let's change the world.' All in the context of a world with enough information on starting web businesses online to read past this level of naivety. All things hackers intend to bristle at.

On the scale from savvy to clueless, this doesn't rate well. But the snarky tone of the headline isn't any better. Sequoia isn't even spelled properly...
Ah, good point. With computes 300 bytes, 300 milliseconds, and other seemingly minor values matter because they are multiplied by large numbers. Every bit counts all the time I guess if you have a high traffic web app.
> in reality, this is a much, MUCH bigger issue than whether some random plugin is or isn't allowed on the iphone.

That was my point. It is about whether you get to operate your phone the way you want. It is about the percentage of existing and future innovation you will be able to access. Without this the value of the platform will deteriorate.

> i personally don't like flash.

So you think you or Steve Jobs should get to decide if anyone else can use it. What sort of totalitarian utopia do you have in mind?
Surprisingly CloudFront was almost twice as slow as S3 for me (though I only tried it once):

[1] 6m 56s

[2] 11m 22s
IMHO, they should let go of search as a focus, and go with apps.

They've got decent properties in that area, and Google's weak anywhere they can't use their index or relevance ranking abilities.
Take a look at these photos, they are from 1750s
http://images.google.com/images?q=1750s&q=source%3Alife
I wonder how this compares to Mosso's CloudFiles? They've already been offering a CDN built-in, but I haven't done any testing myself yet to compare their services (latency, etc).

Cost comparisons run very close using their cost calculators for just CloudFiles vs S3...
Why C++ is a viable alternative to C in embedded systems design
What does "iconoclasm" mean in this context?
Umair Haque: Detroit's 6 Mistakes and How Not to Make Them
I hear you, so much to do, so little time. That's why I said your app is dangerous. People can easily sit there for a while going through the rumor mill instead of coding:)
Seems like Video Egg and Pinch Media are meant for established high volume traffic players. AdMob is more for true startups.
> You consider flash cool and interesting???

Not particularly no. The point is that new technologies come along all the time and if you they are going to ban anything they don't like they are going to miss out on a substantial proportion of interesting software.

> Who wants java applets on their iphone browser? not me thanks.

Me. Why not? I'd also like to able to run whatever the F* I like. Why should you or anyone else tell me what I can or can't run?
Well, not really. Flash works quite ok on Windows. It is a resource hog on Mac and underdeveloped on Linux, all by Adobe/Macromedia's fault.
You're right about people using it wrong, though.
so the guy's a noob, big deal -- we've all been there.

he'll get a rude awakening soon enough, but i would imagine HN ought to encourage starting somewhere rather than not trying at all?

</preach> :)
I didn't say that it is not fair, but I think it definitely is DRM. So maybe it is an example of fair use of DRM.

I still prefer my MP3s name-free, but that only means that I would pay more for name-free than for named MP3s.
Barak Obamas Deal cocaine
Those are not photographs. "Le pittore antiche" means "Antique pictures" (not photography) and not even litography was invented before the 19th century.
isn't the computer gigs craigslist for stuff along the lines of geek squad etc? You know more to do with hardware than actual coding?
You should always do both forms of accounting.

Cash accounting tells you if you're going to be in business tomorrow. Accrual accounting tells you if you're going to be in business next year. Not doing cash accounting will cause problems sooner; but either of them will cause problems eventually if ignored.
thats actually pretty cool, I bet Google will buy them if they don't have something like this in the works already
I could more readily agree with what you're saying if a great resource like Hacker News didn't consistently get high-ranked items with headlines like "10 Ways To Get Motivated To Change The World By Starting A Startup"

For what it's worth: the CraigsList poster is light years ahead of midwestern Union workers are with their compulsions to invest in Quixtar and 'systems' from Carleton Sheets.

But really, who is to judge? I think it's cool that this person is, at the very least, pretending to try.
"I have an idea, I can't test it or build it, so I don't actually know how good this idea is, but come work for me for free and make me rich!"

I am amazed that people have the chutzpah to act like that these days (e.g.: http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=362066).

Call me old fashioned, but what about building the product first (and learning the skills needed to be competent enough to do so)?
Ship. Meet Sailed. Sailed, Ship.
A few additional points.

EFF has a lot of experience, why not use it.

* Sourceforge is a massive business with 50 million/year in revenue.*

Massive by whose standards? 50 million a year revenue relative to the major record labels doing 20 billion a year revenue. The music industry is 400 times the size, that is substantial multiplier.

Any number of other large companies who have or use open source projects indirectly have a stake in this lawsuit. Companies like Google and IBM won't stand by idly while precedence is created on how open source projects will be held accountable for their user's behavior. This is similar to lawsuits that were attempting to hold the gun industry responsible for what the users of the gun did with them.
I can't believe only the New Yorker publishes poetry anymore.
I think Apple wants apps to be $0.99 or free. Otherwise they would have been ranking by revenue from the beginning.
NVIDIA Announces Tesla Personal Supercomputer
Pull his string, out comes: "So all we have to do is leverage information across multiple paradigms to create a shift from a top down hierarchy into a holographically oriented multiplex and virally spread the data, growing value organically rather than forcing it industrially. In the 21st century 20th century thinking won't work, because it results in detroit, which sucks. Google doesn't suck because it knows how to tap communities, groups, and markets for information, resources, and ads, creating value from the decentralization of power. Detroit should be google because it's the 21st century or something." until the string runs out.

I swear that guy is on the same drugs I am.
A lot of these overlap with http://gettyimages.com (Editorial photos).
Not Enough Indians: Chief Yahoo Jerry Yang's -$20 billion legacy
On Remote Workers and Working Remotely
Apple wants apps to do everything that can be offloaded to a handheld. This thing is in it's infancy. Apple gets to create this part of the 21st century because no one else is up for it. You think the iPhone is a mature product? Not even close.
Honestly, even if this sorta works and you somehow magically get everyone into it, we had and still have spam in the form of physical mail. At 5 cents it sounds like email spam will still be cheaper than that. ...I am now very tempted to scream 'fail'.
I heard he really wanted more time for playing WOW.
Mid-2007 Prototype MacBook Air Found on eBay
Judge slaps down Psystar's antitrust claims against Apple
Apple did not create this part of the 21st century. There have been applications for mobile phones for years now (and before the phones, there was the palm pilot). I am sure there are way more applications available for other mobile platforms than for the iPhone. #nitpicking
I talked to a guy who wrote a 'map' route finder for the Psion 3c in about 1996-1997. It paid his mortgage...
Old fashioned. Do some marketing first, see if anyone responds, then decide to build the product.
I saw a video of yahoo workspace.

It was like yahoo hired the flair manager from office space as an interior designer. Like they only hired the miserable, desperate people who confuse collecting trolls in your cubicle with being happy. In such a mediocre environment, how can you think or expect anything truly good to happen?
John McCarthy: Elephant a programming language for 2015, mp3, 25m, 11.9mb
Ask HN: Asked to Give a Lecture
I've been asked to give a lecture tomorrow night on the basics of Python and how to use Python to manipulate financial data. I was only asked this morning to prepare something.

If you were asked to prepare something for a group of students that have little to no programming experience, what would you include in an introductory lecture?
You can code without paying for the dev certificate. The SDK is a free download.

You just can't put apps on the app store or your phone without having a cert. There's a slight difference.
All this would do is force the prices the other way. People would be trying to sell crap for more using WOM or some other way to inflate 'box office revenue' and once they are on the list, instead of lowering the price to stay on it, they'd be increasing it. While that will get rid of crapware for .99, it will drive the prices of the same soft up, ultimately hurting the consumer. Best solution to this is app genius that recommends apps based on what you want to do.

Until that happens, use word of mouth to your advantage. Use Google Mobile App as an example of online campaign. Once techies get your app on their phone, they will be the platform for homing in their less tech friends to your apps.
For TS we're trying to decide how to make sign-up dead simple. Since we want to support alerts and such, we'd like to simply use an e-mail/pw combo so that you only have to fill out 3 fields when you sign up (email/pw/pw confirm).

Do you have a better suggestion? Should we just specify why we ask for e-mail?