skysight-inc/HackerNews huggingface dataset:
I want to like it, but it's not doing what I want. I have a ton of music on my Android phone, but app won't sync from a phone, only from a desktop computer. The corroloary to this is that music I get from outside the Android market (e.g. friends, random downloads, Amazon MP3) is invisible to the cloud unless I copy it manually.

And the Linux app sucks rocks. My memory is that it's an enormous pain to get installed on F16/x86-64. It doesn't understand the standard proxy environment variables or gconf settings, and in fact when used behind a proxy, THE UI LOCKS UP SOLID a few seconds after starting. So I can't use it at work. (Because who wants to listen to music at work?)

I wouldn't even care, except that I have to use the desktop app. Even things that I'd think would work as web apps aren't there. You can't upload from a web app. You can't manage play lists from a web app.

That said, the Android player app is actually not bad at all, and I do use it. But the cloud side of the equation is a total fail from my perspective.
We already highlight some contributions, e.g. how many times you've committed to ruby on rails core. We plan to do it for other popular repos and contributions in the future.

We agree there are also meaningful accomplishments outside of open source so we made it possible to share those special bits w/links on your profile too.
Apple prompts Mac developers to sign up for the Developer ID program
My gut reaction to this is that real businesses are hard to copy. If you look at the most successful online businesses of the last 10 years (Facebook, Google, Zynga, Linkedin), none of them have had successful copies.

But if you - in an afternoon or a long weekend - create a web site as a small project, expect a lot of people to do that too. Some do it for fun, and some may actually be serious about competing with you. But if you have passion for it, and they don't, it won't matter.

I look at the stuff Patrick does (BCC), and it looks kinda hard to really copy. He's open about his processes, challenges, and all the work he put into it (particularly marketing and generating repeat business). I may be bold enough to say it's easy to copy the technology and hard to copy the business.
I'm working on a map-based business that currently uses google maps. I might switch to this before or shortly after I open to the public. It looks great and is much cheaper than google!
Shh!

No, seriously: I apply patches which fit the vision, do not break the reference implementation on BCC, and do not cost me time from things I value in life. Happy to have them. That is, ballpark, half of patches. (The most common reason for not taking a patch is that people break Rails 2 behavior when trying to bug fix for Rails 3. The second is sometimes patches generate work, and if a "I have reasonable project rates" email is less work, that is what I'll usually do.)
Pro tip for fellow Canadian residents:

1. Login to Google Music once from an American IP address.

2. Use it forever from any IP address.
I'm going to reply to my own comment in order to address the numerous responses all at once.

First, I'll establish some modest authority on the subject by pointing out that I've worked directly with Tim Caswell, who helped create CoffeeScript, at multiple jobs now. He's explained to me how they developed it and we've discussed the merits of it.

Second, I don't believe CoffeeScript is lacking merit. I make no claims of such. I'm actually happy that CoffeeScript exists in that I hope it brings more people into the JavaScript fold so long as it does not detract in ways like this.

Third, I understand what CoffeeScript is and how it works, but have chosen not to learn it. That's my prerogative and I make no claims to the superiority of that choice apart from my choosing it.

Fourth, I _could_ talk about how time is not free. Installing a CoffeeScript compiler, learning CoffeeScript, undertaking the mental frame of reference change necessary to switch between context, are equally not free, but I don't feel the need to further this defense as it has been made many _many_ times before, especially here on HN.

In reality, this is about none of the above. This is labeled as JavaScript when _it is not_. I repeat, CoffeeScript is _not_ JavaScript. To the many responses this will incite, I'd direct you to my points above. This is not intrinsically a bad thing. Far from it, if CoffeeScript was not different, it would not be relevant. It is its difference that makes it relevant. I will likely eventually learn CoffeeScript when it becomes necessary or worth it. In fact, I attempted to previously, but setting up auto-compilers, etc... took about 20 minutes too long, and given the insufficient value proposition, I didn't bother to finish learning it.

I come across many node/JavaScript/Github projects regularly and don't have the time to bother learning or using 90% of them, but I bookmark them because they are intriguing and I hope to have them if and when I do need or want to use them. That's 9/10 _JavaScript_ projects that I don't get to just because I don't have the time.

I'll repeat my main point because that is all my original comment was ever about, if CoffeeScript is not different, there's no point in it existing; if it is different, then it's a positive reason otherwise it would receive no attention; if it is positively different, then why not market it as such? It's obvious that those who point out that CoffeeScript is a dialect and compiles to JavaScript so it is therefore an acceptable mis-labeling are attempting to have their cake and eat it too at the expense of people like me that either have not taken the time to learn it yet, or do not care to for _numerous_ philosophical reasons which I defend are quite valid, though being a pragmatist, ultimately will not factor into my reasoning.
Hacker Monthly: best of the Internet, printed out, and it’s turning a profit
I actually wasn't aware of the 'clojure buildpack' until you mentioned it. All I've ever done to put Clojure/Ring apps on Heroku is add a one-line Procfile to my Leiningen project, and `git push heroku`. :-)
moar rails? moar coffeescript?
Most start-ups have a wide pool of "customer" bosses. If a few of them are uncooperative, they can refuse to serve them.

Employees can be ruined by the idiosyncrasies of a single boss.
Actually, modafinil is practically tasteless, which I would say is objectively better than the bitter taste of coffee. Of course, it's possible to train yourself to enjoy that bitter taste through operant conditioning, but it's not really a "better" taste.
My thoughts exactly. The whole library is available as a torrent. Why ask if its okay when asking is not even necessary.

How to be more awesome: do cool stuff for people without needing them to hold your hand.
Google search quality highlights: 40 changes for February
That's simply not true when talking about audio CDs. You can even get non-identical rips from the same machine with the same CD-ROM drive, software and settings.

The issue is that the audio CD standard ("Red book") does not require block-accurate addressing during seeking[1]. This allows you to still be able to play scratched up CDs, with the trade off being that even discs that aren't scratched up that bad may not give you a byte-for-byte copy on different reads.

To try and account for this, CD ripping programs like EAC have to make multiple read passes and apply certain algorithms to determine where jitters occur and only take the "good parts."

[1]: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jitter#Compact_disc_seek_jitter
No, 120,000,000 people who might benefit from apps built by others on the open data.

It is good IMO for a rep to fight for legislation that helps local businesses when that action serves his constituents as a group over the long term.

That's not the case here because what Santorum did is attempt to artificially block competition in a space where competition is likely to benefit all of his constituents in the long term. It's selling out the majority for the sake of one small business and creating a wasteful bit of government that small gov types like Santorum ought to be fighting against. It's creating a barrier to free market completion for the sake of a small win for one small company.
There's not enough contrast between the street names and the rest of the map, making readability a problem. It's the kind of design mistake that young people with nice monitors make!
Items that are relevant to the link:

* JavaScript
* Node.js
* Connect
* Express
* CoffeeScript

He is unfamiliar with just one of those.

Why the downvote? His comment contributes to the discussion, unlike yours.
>>>We live in a time where pulling a BlackBerry out of your pocket and placing it on the desk during your interview could cost you the job at startup or tech company.

That seems a little hyperbolic, but I have to agree with it. So much about interviews is presenting yourself.
Was really hoping they had bought a literal cove in order to lure quality engineers to a vacation-quality work environment: http://www.flickr.com/photos/jackscottimages/4461780264/

Now that would be an idea!
Wanting something is merely entitlement. Changing something is rewarded. As has been mentioned, if you disagree on the proposed solution to the "problem," a better endeavor would be to change it.

In other words: walk the walk, don't just talk the talk.
Wanting something is merely entitlement. Changing something is rewarded. As has been mentioned, if you disagree on the proposed solution to the "problem," a better endeavor would be to change it.

In other words: walk the walk, don't just talk the talk.

Edit: Oh, and complaining about downvotes isn't worthwhile either.
They do. Just shift select all the songs that you want to download, click that little menu button and select "download all songs"
Interesting. I know in x264 there's a non-deterministic option when using multithreading that can speed up encoding and quality sometimes, otherwise it always produces the same output.
I generally wish I could go to the site and not even see non-Amazon warehoused items- effectively always keeping the "prime only" box checked. I like buying from Amazon, not the marketplace. It's also confusing for the non-savvy user.
Title update:

Tower.coffee - CoffeeScript Framework ...
If you love Java and want a magnitude of libraries, and don't have any particular attachment to Lisp syntax or dynamic typing (which 'love Java' seems to imply), then it would benefit you to check out the Play [1] and Lift [2] frameworks as well. Lift is Scala-based but is 100% interoperable with Java libraries, and Play apps can be written in either Java or Scala and is also 100% interoperable with Java. Play is quicker to learn, Lift has superb built-in security and very easy Ajax/Comet.

1. http://www.playframework.org/

2. http://liftweb.net/
What happens at the World Economic Forum in Davos
Personally I find Google Maps to be quite slow, especially on mobile devices! Looking forward to comparing this one on mobile phones!
Your stat counter is almost identical to that on the front page of Apple.com..
Great news! Is this available at high zooms across the US and Canada yet?
I didn't mean that to sound demanding, it's just a suggestion.

There is a middle ground between getting really involved, and just throwing the code over the fence, of course, such as responding to polite emails, with even a 'no thanks'. Perhaps you feel like you're already there, but my inclination is that if you're too busy, it'd be nice to set up something really simple where other people can coordinate.

It's not as if you're not using a great deal of other people's free code yourself. Indeed, if I make millions, I'd be happy to share some with you when I'm done sharing with Linus, the GCC guys, the Rails guys, the Ruby guys, the Gnome guys, the Postgres guys, the LibC guys, the Debian and Ubuntu guys, and heck, even RMS. I wonder what he'd like.

Actually, on a trip down memory lane, that sort of thing isn't entirely unheard of. Redhat and VA Linux both dished out shares to people involved in open source, which was pretty cool given how much of a pain in the neck it must have been.
Thank you for the info.

One last question: do you use gender, age, and other customer-specific predictors in your model? The distribution of lambdas for men and women could vary significantly.
Dear Github, please fix the Watch-Button
That's probably true. I have it turned off because I'm pretty sure I'd end up buying far too much.
Eric Eldon Named Top Editor at Techcrunch
HuMn wallet
Poll:  How Do You Deal with Vendor Prefixes?
The fact that iTunes Match does not stream content puts it in a separate class of service than Google Music and Amazon Cloud Player, in my opinion.
Slightly related note:

This seems to be a trend lately in Google's desktop software that I'm not comfortable with. On both my Linux and Mac machines 'ps aux | grep -i chrome' shows background processes running long after I've quit Chrome.

I don't see any GUI options to turn these off (there used to be an option in 'about: flags' that I think was related), and I have to end up killing them from the command line.

Not cool, Google.
I currently opt out of having a webcam using a piece of electrical tape.
A minimalist compiler to help you learn LLVM's OCaml bindings
I agree that's the status quo, but Apple's a rather unique organization in terms of their mix of negotiation ability, closeness to Hollywood, and design ability. And there's already cracks showing when it comes to their software quality. Those advantages can't last forever.
@Title: Wonder why that is...

We're sorry. Google Music is currently only available in the United States.
Same experience here, and the situation on the iPhone is even worse: there's not even a native first-party app.
Goodbye Erick, Hello Eric
Always crazy ironic that Balsamiq requires Flash, possibly the most UX-hostile platform out there.

Strategically speaking it’s awkward because Flash is literally dead†, and unavailable on the most popular couch computer ever, the iPad.

What’s the UX look like for someone coming across one of these posts on their couch, now?

†Officially abandoned on mobile & Linux, as Adobe realigns Flash to niches like gaming
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ced: We do some post-hoc analysis to find differences on whatever dimensions our clients give us. We have found that in general, the largest effect is the month of acquisition, and so this is the only factor that we include in the model right now.
Are you the author?

Awesome diagram and I'd love to use that for our projects at work, but would probably get some pushback when management saw the "would make a good dictator", "kicks ass", etc.

If you are, any chance you could make a version with more "professional" descriptions?
Tabletop: Google Spreadsheets with a single JS include
I have thought about this too and while not to break from the Match.com discussion.

This is a big dilemma where I work, but not for match.com. Women are finding themselves being placed online with pictures of themselves in different positions from their camera phones. Mostly from Ex BFs or people that just wanted to be upsetting to that person. We are actually dealing with facial recognition to try and find those women through various websites and make sure they know their pictures have been placed online. There is a small amount of money that can be made through lawyers to have the perp who placed them online sued.

One day, you will be able to search facebook with all your "dirty" images and find those 18,19,20,21 year olds that well didn't want their pictures made public....
Spain asks: If Google search results make your business look bad, can you sue?
Submit your App to 100s of Review Sites - New Service
Revista Farmaprecios PLM | Facebook Oficial
I thought the point of Accurate Stream was to provide the ability to do sample-accurate streaming, along with C2 error detection to know when there was a problem. EAC only does multiple jittered read passes if your drive doesn't support Accurate Stream. How else can it do hash checks for accurate rips?

EDIT: I confused C2 error pointers and Accurate Stream. Mea culpa.
Bring Back The Show with Ze Frank
How One Ship's Anchor Disrupted Internet Access in 6 Countries
Why the Progress Bar Is Lying to You
Is it only me, or does anyone else think that the 40k predictions per day limit is a little too low for some?
Maybe not 10m, but Kozmo comes to mind. They raised $250mm They had huge demand but expenditures were too high (doing stupid stuff like delivering packs of $0.50 gum)

Also, Groupon? :D
The title of the article really hooked me. My background:

1. I have a degree in mathematics
2. I've been writing software since high school
3. I've had to do more CLV calculations than I can count
4. I've co-founded a retail startup (http://everlane.com)

So, take this critique with an open heart.

Here's a summary of the points below, for those short of attention. The article is caught between writing for a technical and non-technical audience. There are too many technical terms for a non-technical person to make real sense of it, and not enough detail for a technical person to use the article as a reference.

First, and overall, I'm not sure who the target audience is. The topic is technical enough that I'd guess it's for the head of analytics or a data scientist inside a retail company.

If that's the case, the article is really light on detail. There's nothing I can apply immediately to my work, except to Google for some of the phrases in the blog to learn more. There aren't even links to external papers with more detail.

If it's more for marketing people, well, it's too technical. Bayesean? Gamma distribution?

Second, assuming I'm in your target audience, give me the math! Spell it out plainly, even if you don't tell me "why" it works. For me "plainly" means "mathematically" coupled with a plain-English explanation. You can link to external papers for that. But I'm not afraid of a summation or an argmax. In fact, it's much easier for me to understand than someone writing it out in plain English. You throw out "gamma distribution" but don't even link to the definition, explain what it is, or explain how λ and μ fit into it.

"The gamma distribution is a perfect candidate, since it characterizes most customer bases very well."

Why does it characterize most customer bases very well? I really really want to know. The fact that it's a gamma distribution is almost incidental to the deeper point about what distributions characters which features of customer behavior, and why.

Because of my background I know some of those things and can easily figure out the rest, but you're not making it easy for me.

It's like you go into detail on the soft stuff (where I care less about detail), and about detail on the hard stuff (which is exactly where I want detail).

Third, numbers! The margin of error chart is mostly irrelevant. In any case, it's not detailed enough for me to use to compare these different methods, and at best serves as a way for a non-technical marketer to say, "No, the Bayesean way is better. Look at this chart." Give me a concrete example of applying this technique first, and then give me a concrete example of comparing it to the other techniques.

Fourth, the typeface on the blog is just awful. If you're producing scientific content I'd recommend using a serif typeface. Georgia is ok, but something like Garamond or Century Schoolbook are more similar to Computer Modern (the default LaTeX typeface).
Bruce Shneier Interview: "I'm not worried about criminals, even organised crime"
I think this advice should be further generalized to something along the lines of "take responsibility for your actions." What's wrong with being goofy as long as you aren't using it as an excuse to skirt around your shortcomings? Besides, I don't want to be the "hardass" leader. I'd much rather be the guy that everyone likes but can still rely on to make sure things get done.
Elevate Your PHP to the Cloud
The "Pepsi Challenge" was the brainchild of none other than erstwhile PepsiCo president John Sculley, who you mind remember for later running Apple into the ground.
Element/Entry cost in Java/Guava data structures
sure will do.
Want to avoid cancer? Take ibuprofen
An experienced running coach has recently opined that spending an hour in the gym doing strength is about equivalent to 10 minutes of running.

Part of the reasoning could be the activation of different energy systems. Lifting activates the anaerobic system, whereas sustained cardio activates the aerobic system and dips into the anaerobic only at higher levels of effort. The anaerobic system transmits something like 30+ ATP (energy currency of the body), whereas aerobic is 2 ATP [1]. That might explain why you experience this difference.

[1] http://ksuweb.kennesaw.edu/~vking2/PhotosynthesisandCellular...
"If I had asked people what they wanted, they would have said faster horses." -Henry Ford
10% of shipping costs is much less than 10% of the sale price.
Don't ask your customers what to build. That's lazy.

"Listening" is the wrong word to use when it comes to feedback. You need to engage customers about their pain points. Your customers understand their problems but not the solution.

It's worth repeating--don't ask them for the solution. Ask them for the problem.
Interesting to see the split of 95:5 digital/print. Not a total shocker but it's an excellent data point. I wonder what the break down of people using mobi/Kindle, PDF, and EPUB is.

It's also a good demonstration of the value of having paying subscribers rather than running advertising alone. While I don't know Lim's numbers, I've advertised in HM before and saw the early ratecards and suspect the amount isn't even a drop in the ocean compared to the subscriber fees. This is why Lim is earning more than twice what I am on 50k free subscribers ;-) A big "D'oh!" on my part..
This reminds me of the Simpsons ep. where they had an Itch & Scratchy (and Poochie) focus panel--

Man: How many of you kids would like Itchy & Scratchy to deal with real-life problems, like the ones you face every day?

Kids: [clamoring] Oh, yeah! I would! Great idea! Yeah, that's it!

Man: And who would like to see them do just the opposite -- getting into far-out situations involving robots and magic powers?

Kids: [clamoring] Me! Yeah! Oh, cool! Yeah, that's what I want!

Man: So, you want a realistic, down-to-earth show... that's completely off-the-wall and swarming with magic robots?

Kids: [all agreeing, quieter this time] That's right. Oh yeah,good.
If you signed up early enough and bought an album (or something like that), Amazon gave out free unlimited storage for music. With that, there's no good reason to move to Google (20k song limit) - they have a perfectly good Android app, a decent web player, and they make it a snap to upload/download from your computer. I've tried Google music out and I agree - the software is really annoying.

It doesn't help that I already spent a month uploading my music to Amazon. I'm not going through that again anytime soon.
this would be a great idea for the dating website, although it wont solve chicken-egg problem.

most women i ever went out from match had pictures with their boyfriends on their profile that looked pretty similar to me! it would be an interesting approach: you upload a picture of yourself and reverse-match.com searches through database of pictures (that women with their boyfriend upload but dont have to be visible anywhere on the site) and as a result you getting list of women that had pictures with guys that look similar to you.
I have the same problems, and have considered dumping my OS (Windows) and re-installing it from scratch just to get rid of the two errors I get constantly.

All it does is serve as a reminder not to use or install any other Google app.
Apple Siri New Rival