skysight-inc/HackerNews huggingface dataset:
"In 1967, when Cosmo’s “The Computer Girls” article ran, 11 percent of computer science majors were women. In the late 1970s, the percentage of women in the field approached and exceeded the same figure we are applauding today: 25 percent. The portion of women earning computer science degrees continued to rise steadily, reaching its peak — 37 percent — in 1984. Then, over the next two decades, women left computer science in droves — just as their numbers were increasing steadily across all other science, technology, engineering, and math fields. By 2006, the portion of women in computer science had dropped to 20 percent." http://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/when-computer-program...

The Computer Science/Tech/IT industry created an unwelcoming environment for women; the women left.

A random sampling of how IT can be hostile to women:

I sat one empty seat away from a long-haired friend in a Computer Architecture class with around 15 students attending lectures in a room with theater style seating and the entrances to the rear. Plenty of room to spread out.

On a regular basis, guys would enter from the rear and sit directly next to my long haired friend. No empty seat between. Only after sitting down did these guys realize the woman they just sat next to was actually a goateed dude. These creepers would then get up and quietly leave the classroom horribly embarrassed. This happened for half a semester until enough of these guys learned.

I can't imagine how a woman would feel if she had her personal space invaded on a regular basis when clearly there was plenty of room to spread out.

Then if a woman gets to the professional world she gets invited to a hackathon where the women will be serving drinks to the men. Or she sits near the front door and visitors assume she is a secretary. Or she "gets" to run the party planning committee. Those experiences add up over time and make life unpleasant.
I don't think everyone should always use explicit namespaces everywhere.

But in this case "Math" isn't even a namespace! It's a class of which cos() is a static member.
http://docs.oracle.com/javase/6/docs/api/java/lang/Math.html...
Missing entries:

SQLite (yes, it is useful in production)

kdb+ (it's kind of specialized, but so are vertica and greenplum)

HyperTable (if hbase is there ...)

Tokyo/Kyoto Cabinet (if redis is there ...)

On second thought, this might be already too spread out, too many options already for a meaningful survey
Honestly, given the problem context, a function is obviously the way to go. There isn't enough other context to give you a guideline for having an object model.

In a larger context, you might want to actually have an object/struct that represents a quadratic equation. The weird thing though was having an object for a quadratic equation and not having another object for its root (or more likely, either have a binomial class or just one generic polynomial class). I'm trying to think of a context where that makes any sense at all... and not finding it.
When it comes to accounting for it, subsidies like all other expenses by definition come out of revenue, not earnings.

According to JL Gassee, the ARPU for most cellphones is $46.09, for iPhones it is approaching $120 (inclusive of the subsidy).

He quotes: "AT&T CEO Randall Stephenson pronounced himself happy with the 'over $100' ARPU from iPhone subscribers."

There is a very healthy amount there to absorb the subsidy plus cost of providing voice + data.
I think your calculated number needs to be multiplied by 100, if I'm not mistaken.
UK Broadcaster Allegedly Hacked Rivals' Access Technology To Bankrupt Them
6 fun facts about Leonard Nimoy on his 81st birthday
One solution to this problem is a defensive publication: basically you write a patent application, send it to the patent office (so they can use it as prior art), but don't ask for it to be patented. Unfortunately, writing the application has a nontrivial cost.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Defensive_publication
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Statutory_invention_registratio...
Why is it necessary to include the age in the title?
This seems like it really depends on the way Apple implemented scrolling, where you can pull past the end and then have it spring back. I don't know if this was new with Apple though.
Either this, or negotiated/set a better expectation that he isn't going to bring certain inventions with him to Twitter. Granted, this probably would have made it harder for an agreement on terms regarding his place at Twitter to come into existence.
Poll: What’s your favorite drink during a hacking session?
red bull
guarana juice
coke / diet coke
pepsi / diet pepsi
mountain dew
other soda
Quick clarification: Stephen Lord doesn't work for DHS, he works for GAO, which is an agency established by Congress to maintain, as the title says, "government accountability". His jurisdiction is over DHS. This isn't to say he's a good guy, since GAO is mostly bean counters, but there it is.
Send a physical letter -- it has far more impact, especially if handwritten.
Do the math: $1,366 for each of Color's 30K DAU
The value of a UX convention is mostly destroyed if it doesn't become an accepted convention.

Consider this. Company X develops an interaction. They use it in all their software which commands 30% of the market and they prevent others using using the threat of patent litigation.

The rest of the industry settles on an alternative which is patent-free.

Which is the better interaction? You can argue that it's the second one simply by virtue of being used in 70% of cases. Even if it is initially less familiar or in general less efficient - it's eventual familiarity outweighs both concerns.
Apple didn't invent multi-tasking gestures. There's no reason they should hold any patents on that.

It's not novel because the natural option of manipulating content or a swipe upwards or downwards to load newer or older content with your fingers, on a touch interface, is obvious. What else would you use on a touch interface? Might as well claim you can't use your fingers to load content at all through any action.
I am having a hard time figuring out where Apple would ever implement this. They don't have any news apps or readers or anything that could really benefit from this. The only app I can really see is Mail, since it does have a refresh button that could be replaced, but Apple doesn't really like to depend on gestures.
About Google Play
I've read that. It was a very good article. Think I even commented on it when it hit HN, but I don't recall offhand. But for all that, they have to extradite him first. They probably will, mind you, but it remains to be seen. There have been enough goofs already to create at least a little doubt.

I'm not saying they've done nothing illegal, just that the argument over the notices isn't a particularly strong one. Like I said, there are much better arguments.
Quick quibble: the last guy is GAO, not DHS, as I explained here: http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=3758730
Windows Phone Emulator in the 7.1.1 SDK - quick insights
Gmail's mobile version has had pull to refresh for a while. Google's pockets are probably deep enough.
The problem is having parties on both sides of the lawsuit present, and the hearing is about the TSA, so they can't very well be removed.

If you're going to accuse people of failure to use logic, using a little yourself wouldn't hurt.
Apple could presumably license it under favorable terms from Twitter, if they're in fact that friendly.
1. Regardless of the state of the field, you haven't made an argument that these isn't her experiences.

2. Whatever the reason, the number of women involved in computing has been on the decline for the last twenty years.

3. The number of women in senior positions today might not reflect the number who enter the field twenty years if there was significant job discrimination or if women happened to have different preferences. The gender distribution of principals doesn't necessarily reflect the gender distribution of teachers.
Restructuring Relationships Through a Commensalistic Lens
The real leadership lessons of Steve Jobs (according to his biographer)
From his last post I didn't think he'd ever change his tune. It seemed like he had the backing of those in his profession, and he tried to spin it into an us vs. them situation.

Unfortunately the facts weren't on his side, and nor were others in his profession.

Ultimately this is the best response he could have given. Come clean. Although the couple of weeks of denial kind of eroded a lot of trust. However now it seems it was just an internal issue, and he's come to terms.
Agreed.

The indictment itself is hilarious. It just goes on & on & on.
Kilgore Trout is a fictional character. You could ask Kurt Vonnegut, who invented him, but he's dead. You can certainly assume that it's meant to be humorous.
As an interesting counter point, Jeff Dean at Google says they prefer to have a known hit every once in a while, so they will have all the cron jobs go off at the same time versus introducing jitter. It perhaps has to do with their emphasis on reducing variability to control the size of the long tail distribution.
Seedcamp US tour roundup
Can you reference which sets of numbers? I made reference to a couple and want to make sure I understand.
Profiles of the World's Best CEO's
None of those technical credentials involve airport security.
He said that he wasn't planning on it - that's non-binding and ambiguous.
A price-per-MB that falls during the course of the month as you use more and more.

Isn't this exactly the opposite of the way other metered services work? With residential electricity, for example, isn't it usual for the price per additional KWH to rise as one's monthly usage crosses the pricing tiers?

Isn't that exactly what you would want to encourage people to moderate their use of a supposedly scarce resource (like energy or bandwidth)?
This is a great piece and is more than I expected from him.

However, he still falls short of apologizing to Foxconn or Apple for slandering them in the pursuit of making a name for himself.

He can apologize to his audiences and "The theatre" all he wants. Until he apologizes to his actual victims, he's still a first class scum bag in my book.
Hmm... Could you recommend some resources for this? I need to wrap a couple libraries and make them accessible in both Python and Ruby.
Or, you know, the opposite:

On or about September 8, the [Warner] representative sent a follow-up request, and on or about September 9, the representative sent another follow-up request. On or about September 10, ORTMANN sent an e-mail to DOTCOM, stating, “They are currently removing 2500 files per day - a cursory check indicates that it’s legit takedowns of content that they own appearing in public forums.” ORTMANN also stated, “We should comply with their request - we can afford to be cooperative at current growth levels.” DOTCOM responded that the limit should be increased to 5,000 per day, but “not unlimited.”

"We should comply with their request - we can afford to be cooperative at current growth levels." Heh.
Looking at the prosecution history on the USPTO's PAIR, the patent was granted on the first try -- the Examiner didn't cite any reference against it and granted it right away. That's pretty rare (and weighs toward there being novelty here). Also, note this is a utility patent, not a design patent -- so 20 years of a right-to-exclude from the filing date.

The filing date (and priority date in this case) is April 8, 2010. i.e. that's the date someone would need to find prior art that reads on the claims of the patent. (Unless Twitter can establish an earlier invention date -- which would likely occur in the course of an actual lawsuit about the patent; e.g. a Git checkin of the first implementation, or a drawing in a notebook with a date on it).

As for the claims, the two independent claims are:

A method claim:
1. A method, comprising: displaying a content area; receiving input associated with a first command, the first command including a request to scroll the content area; and based on the first command, performing a second command, the second command being independent of the first command.

And a device claim:
20. A non-transitory computer-readable medium having computer-executable instructions stored thereon that, when executed by a processor, cause the processor to perform a method, comprising: displaying a scrollable list of content items, the scrollable list of content items including a plurality of discrete content items arranged chronologically; receiving input associated with a scroll command, the input representing touch-based user input; based on the scroll command, displaying a scrollable refresh trigger configured to scroll with the scrollable list of content items; in response to determining that the scrollable refresh trigger is fully displayed, providing an instruction associated with activating the scrollable refresh trigger; in response to determining that the scroll command was completed while the scrollable refresh trigger was fully displayed, refreshing the scrollable list of content items; and in response to determining that the scrollable list of content items has been refreshed, automatically scrolling the scrollable list of content items such that the scrollable refresh trigger is not displayed.
Redo is great, I evaluated several make systems for our iOS C++ framework after I got too annoyed about the complexity of waf, and we ended up using redo.

Is redo awesome? Maybe. We have written a few "usability layers" on top of redo, so I can't evaluate it fully as it is.
Your assuming that security theater, a large target for public's anger, and a ready source of media distractions aren't all very valuable tools for The Office of the President.

1984 was a very good instruction manual.
Perhaps the real question is does allowing the patenting of UI innovation encourage greater innovation, or stifle it?
That may be true, but Schneier is also a good figure head for a vocal minority. Schneier may be able to throw around his weight better, or may be more skilled at debating the broader issues.
Google summer of code 2012 – and R – a call for students (please help to share)
Here's a tip for when you first get started: practice giving the throttle very small amounts of gas.

In fact, when you first start out - don't even touch the gas. Idle the car on a flat parking lot in neutral and just let out the clutch very slowly and smoothly after shifting into 1st - you'll start moving forward.

Everyone always tries to learn how to perform a powered start right off the bat and that's a recipe for disaster.
Open source coding with Google Summer of Code
Help a Hacker Out II
The thing that sticks out for me is that there's a bug in that code - a syntax error no less - and none of the C programmers commenting seem to have spotted it. (hint: read the memmove line a bit more closely)

I don't think you need much more evidence that the syntax is confusing.
Not necessarily. Even services that appear to be variably priced like utilities have some base cost on every bill. It's basically the cost have the service available even if you didn't happen to use it.
He meant to entertain the reader with a clever turn of phrase. Something good authors are apt to do.
The Corleone family in the demo account is cute, but it's not the greatest way of demoing what it would look like for a real family to use it. It's also a dramatic shift in tone from the logo, which is more friendly, approachable and peaceful.
I guess Children of Tech savvy parents become hackers...
It's novel. Does that mean it should be illegal for someone to do this in their UI for the next 14 years, unless they pay license fees?

Assuming the patent holder chooses to license it at all. Perceived competitors may not get the chance.

(I'm assuming this is a design patent. If not, it's 20 years, not 14.)
You're probably right, but the post is titled "Girls and Computers", which kind of seems to imply some deep, and general, theorizing about girls and computers.
Why Linux on the Desktop Is Dead
Fixed: Earth is the only planet known by Earth to have life.
No isn't. You can perform synchronus actions. A lot of the io functions have a blocking version.
I had a brief stint working on this particular area in the past (was my first Rails job as well!):

http://web.archive.org/web/20080217022937/http://kinzin.com/

Didn't make it, pivoted a few times. Not sure what the status right now. Unsure what the challenges were since I didn't get involve much in the business/marketing aspect of it.

Hope you guys get a better shot and be successful in this space.
Chinese Gloves and Addressable Markets
Regarding the error "ReferenceError: Can't find variable: atomicFindClose"

We often find with our Javascript exception tracking that it catches ALL javascript exceptions, which as often as not actually involve javascript from external sources. I'm not sure how this would sneak into mobile safari (unless it was being used on another device) but we often get exceptions from Chrome plugins and the like, which we cannot control.
0.004% is 0.00004, not 0.004, so the result is 50 billion galaxies.
When chucking those numbers through the drake equation it looks pretty likely. I think it comes down to a matter of time, both for searching and because I believe we have entered a very dangerous period for a species where technology can either be our savior or cause us to destroy ourselves.
Thumbs up if you're the 311th viewer
I'm really happy to see more tools coming out to take some of the effort out of setting up / deploying your development environment. It's refreshing to get more time to actually code rather than administrate systems.

Awesome site design as well!
Is this the book?

http://pragprog.com/book/bhtmux/tmux
Help a Hacker Out Today II
>Does that mean it should be illegal for someone to do this in their UI for the next 14 years, unless they pay license fees?

I feel very strongly against software patents. My only comment is choosing this to complain about. As far as software behaviors go, it is more novel than most.
Ask HN: Thoughts on a super ytmnd generator done in javascript?
mashface.net
This is something a friend and I made because we where frustrated at how limited youtube doublers and the like are. It gives you as many light boxes as you want which you can resize. The boxes can take youtubes, images, mp3s and html. The boxes can take css rules and other content specific rules depending on the box's url. eg. If the box holds a youtube you get a loop rule.

Some examples:

http://mashface.net/#/w3rews

http://mashface.net/#/m3ik2g

Chrome only sorry.
I'd love to see this tied to opening up the last-mile infrastructure to competition. It seems like variable pricing would require regulatory approval, so it might be a good time to renegotiate.
Hmm,

If the topic of the lawsuit is going to be discussed, then the invited TSA agent's testimony at the hearing could be relevant to the lawsuit regardless of whether Schneier is there. If the topic of the lawsuit is not going to be discussed, then everything is OK. Remember congress people will do the questioning, not Schneier or Schneier's council. Perhaps Schneier's mere presence could inject some lawsuit-related questions (using a zero-day legal flaw the congress-testimony process, perhaps?) but this possibility seems remote.
Lotus Notes, a Lesson in Poor User Experience
Patents are also supposed to be non-trivial. Something that someone else of "ordinary" skill level wouldn't have come up with by himself.

Which brings us to argue subjectivity. Is this example trivial or not? There's no scientific way to point that, each one of us will have different opinion. I personally think this patent is ridiculously trivial, but a judge might disagree, and it's their argument from authority that matters.

The best argument against software patents, imho, is that it's too impractical to clearly define what is and isn't trivial in software without causing more harm than good.
http://mashface.net/#/w3rews

http://mashface.net/#/m3ik2g
PG on Askolo
I listened to the follow up piece by Ira Glass.. It seems that Mike D. has done the same thing to someone else's autobiography (i.e twisted the truth) and went back to the "theater" claim when he was caught.

I am no psychologist, but listening to his 'apology' gave me a strong sense that he was playacting a role of someone who sought forgiveness. He had these dramatic pauses that seemed forced, and was dancing around technicalities. I don't think this is the last time someone is duped by him.
This is cool. Will the backend support authentication and authorization?
Amazingly, the results from the structures they’ve tested show power output ranging from double to more than 20 times that of fixed flat panels with the same base area.

Lets say the current design takes up 1 cubic meter. (I can't tell from the photo).

Lets say you have a 10,000 square meter roof, 100x100 meters.

Does this mean you can put 10,000 of them up there or a number far lower since they need space in between them to let the light in?

The article isn't clear whether an arrangement of 20 of them is more efficient then the space required, but it does hit at it when it says:
Then, to confirm their model’s predictions, they built and tested three different arrangements of solar cells on the roof of an MIT laboratory building for several weeks.
So my crime is the use of a mild (and very common) ad hominem in a context where I would expect most people would see the humor, not being uncivil? And it's OK to call things "crap" just so long as I don't make an ad hominem argument in doing so?

Sorry, your argument is steaming crap. The idea that one can't invoke the pervasive metaphor of bad IT-generated code (or, I guess, imply that the local soap industry might do it) but that it's OK to flame away at the author who does is just dumb.

And for the record: I don't believe I expressed any repentence. :)
Is there a list of other people the TSA is not allowing to testify? I would say the TSA has just given Schneier a pretty solid endorsement.
It's an easy read - not something you can always say about technical books.

I thought it did a good job filling the gap between 'how to write automated tests' and actually writing tests for real world code.
Can an architect patent design features when building a house?
Definitely on the roadmap, but not for the MVP. We're looking to be a really good rapid prototyping and learning tool first.
Yeah, I have seen this in use for some time in high profile applications - seemingly indicating that it is not being enforced.

The Android Facebook app has this pull-to-refresh on its news feed - has for the last handful of updates. Pulse News also has used this same behavior for quite some time... It would seem that either these (and others) have been overlooked or the patent is indeed not being enforced at this time.
Hey - thanks for the comment. Kinzin looks really interesting... I'd actually love to hear more about it and your experience working to bring families closer together online. Think you could drop me an email/tweet?
> Isn't that the purpose of patents?

Well, . . . The purpose of patents is to get things invented that would not otherwise be invented -- if something costs significant time/effort/etc. to invent and those costs would be difficult to recover by selling copies of implementations, patents increase the profit margin of sales and hence help cover costs. (That is the theoretical proposition anyway: it is not really proven by evidence.)

So would this particular invention have been made without patent support? (assuming the standard theoretical model) That is the question.
I'm 100% sure you already do :)