skysight-inc/HackerNews huggingface dataset:
Raising a round SETS the pre-money and post-money valuations of a company. I've known companies that have taken a measly $8M round when they are already independently profitable.

It's basically a bargaining chip. Let's look at two different scenarios:

1. Your last round of financing was two years ago and you raised $2M at a post-money valuation of $8M. Two years pass and you're hot, what is you company worth? Look at some comparables (which the acquirer will try and rip apart). Do a multiple of your revenue (which the acquirer will try and rip apart).

2. Now you're hot and you think you might be acquired (or maybe not!), you raise $5M at a $50M post-money valuation. Now when you sit down at the bargaining table, you can say "Well that VC over there thinks we're worth $50M, what do you think we're worth?"

In option 2, you've got a lot more bargaining power.
You're just in the wrong spot:) I'm pimping Denver in this thread, but what the hell, I'm going to do it again!

I live in a house with a proper yard. It's not suburban big (1100 ft^2 house on a 4500 ft^2 lot), but it's really nice. I have a really cool grocery store 5 blocks away. I also have a small lake (that you can boat on) 6 blocks away in the other direction. I have a 40+ bars and restaurants within a mile of our house. Downtown is two miles down the hill, passing through one of the hottest neighborhoods in the city which adds a bunch more bars and restaurants to the mix. I routinely walk or bike to all of these places. My car is parked 90% of the time. We mainly use it for trips to Ikea or to the mountains.

Oh and my house, in an amazing neighborhood, was less than $300K two years ago:)
Activision Blizzard sued for patent infringement of virtual worlds usage
Certainly agree with this. Understanding where your customers are, what they're reading, and how to get in front of them is the most important factor.

But, after that, finding the most authoritative sources within those markets is crucial. So, when people say TechCrunch is irrelevant for mobile/tech startups, well, that's just wrong (at least for us).
Republique by Camouflaj + Logan
The last paragraph makes me feel like you're going to send me advertisements, or sell my email address. Why do you need to send me a free copy of anything 'indispensable'? The tone is a lot like an infomercial.
Yes. Opera's had the same functionality for many years :) It's super useful!

I can also recommend making shorcuts for "feeling lucky"-type searches:

http://www.google.com/search?q=%s&btnI=yes

https://duckduckgo.com/?q=!+%s

go immediately where you want to go (provided your query is specific enough to be the first hit)
Sony's decision to remove OtherOS functionality, thereby killing the PS3's utility as a supercomputing component, was made in order to staunch losses. The Cell architecture was expensive and every PS3 was sold at a loss, with the idea being to recoup money in game licensing fees. Obviously there weren't many games being played on supercomputers, so once Sony had the feelgood story of the Air Force building supercomputers out of PS3s, they quietly pulled the plug.

This is a long-winded way of saying the PS3' lack of widespread use in supercomputing is not responsible for Sony's losses. Rather, blame their flailing consumer electronics and mobile business.
No, Java wasn't removed. Java was updated on systems where it has been installed.
How to Tell if You Have a Great Idea
When you start talking about latency, you are inherently talking about Amdahl's Law because the question that gets begged is, "can we make amount of work X complete in less time with more processing power Y" ? And in your problem domain of video coding, esp if it is for real-time face to face communication or telematics, latency matters. So Amdahl's Law matters because it dictates the bound on latency.

Doing more work X (making the pie bigger) in about the same time as Y is http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gustafson%27s_Law, latency, like the time of light it is one of those physical universal properties we won't be able to tech our way out of. Latency is inherently a serial problem. What changes when we could try every solution at the same time?

Nearly all hard problems we are solving right now don't need to have exact solution. They can be time bounded or quality bounded or both. What we lack is a clarity in being able to create algorithms that are probabilistic and progressive. Algorithms that refine and converge towards a solution over time. Better languages can help with that.

Here are some examples of probabilistic parallel minimax algorithms.

http://www.top-5000.nl/ps/Parallel%20randomized%20best-first...
http://www.math.md/files/basm/y2010-n1/y2010-n1-(pp33-46).pd...
How to Give a Catastrophe-Free Presentation
I completely agree with your take on it; but pls note the entirely different problem Instagram solved vs. Twitter. If you build a real-time streaming application for pure text based objects, your stack will look very different. But collecting, storing, replicating and serving images as your primary social object != same thing.

Hence, even when Twitter 'added' photos, they went with Photobucket so as to not change the nature of their stack. It had taken them 3 years to really get ahead of their adoption curve for 'just' text.
Nothing to cache. Each response is unique. Well 99.9% anyways.
To be fair, you can add email-only people to G+ as well.
I got pulled over by the police for walking in Houston

Running alongside the freeway is an access road where all the on-off ramps feed. It has a wide sidewalk along the side and it was only a couple of junctions between the hotel and the site I was visiting so I walked.

A police car immediately pulled up to ask where I was going and why? Fortunately the English accent convinced them I was obviously merely some pinko-commie weirdo and not a threat to Houston society.
Agreed on the protocol buffers; that's a huge overkill for what it is used for.
Sort of related - a funny observation that might amuse Americans about us wacky Canucks:

An awful lot of Canadians, myself included, avoid drive-through ATMs, and instead park and walk into the bank. And sometimes, when the bank's busy, we walk up to the the drive-through ATM.

I did this once when I was a co-op student in Starkville, MS, and got some really, really strange looks.
My point was that your comment illustrates how the tyranny of the majority works. Most people in any majority simply have that position coincidentally, but when faced with the possibility of movement, are willing to attack ferociously out of the underlying instinct to stand your ground. The idea of walking a mile in the minority's shoes never even in makes into their thought process, let alone do they actually walk that mile.
You raise a very important issue: a community is not walkable if a person walking in public doesn't feel reasonably safe doing so.

I'm not specifically aware of gender-specific data related to walking (though now I'm going to see what's out there), but I've looked at the issue with respect to cycling and there's a strong correlation between the gender balance of cyclists in a city and the city's material commitment to being bikeable.
Instagram buyout is not a bubble
It's not a terrible thing to think. You aren't thinking this because you're racist, but because we all know that in many communities, the cops will not give nonwhites the same benefit of the doubt that they extend to white people.
That sucks :( My former office (in Pioneer Square, Seattle) has a pretty large homeless & drug-dealing population, but I rarely don't feel safe. Even when I leave work at 1am on a friday night, I just dodge a few intersections that are especially bad and I get home safe. But I'm also a guy-- I know that some of my female coworkers didn't like it, to the extent that we'd sometimes walk them to the parking garage.

Have you considered getting mace?
Agree, $25 per user is insane. Not sure if this is necessarily part of a bubble or the result of some shady dealing for the VC's involved to pick up more Facebook stock to make their portfolio's look like winners.
Ralph Nader's Open Letter to President Obama on Jobs Acts
Fair enough, I'm sure you're right with some of the other lesser used libraries e.g. Riak. It's probably fair to say it takes PHP longer in general to get a good client library than say Python. Not sure about Ruby.
That's also a list of US cities I'd want to live in at all, though.
"Today you. Tomorrow me: You need to mentor someone. They make you realize what you were a few years ago, and make you introspect what you have become, and give you an extrapolation path for your possible futures. A great mentee can teach the mentor as much as he learns." -Subu

Best of it all, it leads to enlightenment of both parties.
Free on-line Stanford courses
I am offering a free automata course starting 4/23/12 for 8 weeks. You can register at www.coursera.com/course/automata Several other courses are also starting then, and you can find all offerings at www.coursera.org/
Backdoor SOPA -- CISPA
مشاهدة مباراة برشلونة وخيتافى بث مباشر
Did Congress Not Pay Attention To SOPA? CISPA Ignorance Is Astounding
Why are their so many requests at the same time? Can't the client make 1 request and receive back the 5-10 things it needs?
GroupMe’s Steve Spillman Goes to the Valley
Now That Instagram’s Wifed Up, Everyone’s Giving Pinterest the Acquisitional Eye
Alley Startup Darlings Team Up for the NYC Uncubed Tech Talent Fair
My work AV blocked a malicious site and I was redirected to some spammy looking ad site.

Edit: Looks ok now.
Instagram and the Age of Upsets
STAND DOWN: Iran’s ‘Clean Internet’ Rumor Started With a Hoax
Booting Up: Teenage Riot Edition
Hey California, New York Is Coming For Your Greentech
The concept of the gated community in a city is much older in Europe, and as in modern America, it also contained a section of society that ordinary people despised and didn't want to mix with.

After one country took this attitude to unfortunate extremes a couple of generations ago - we have tried to all get along a bit better.
Ashton Kutcher invests in Dwolla
Ah, gotcha :)
Taxes and Cheating
Some perspective from XKCD: http://xkcd.com/radiation/
Syn for iPhone spams your FB friends, slips through Apple review process
The idea that it's necessary for an open source project to fill out a form and register with the awesome authority is... weird.

I understand what you're trying to do, but I think this (and similar efforts) are a net negative. Sorry.
No, this is more like writing a long, well reasoned, extensively researched article with the thesis "McDonalds food is unhealthy". It is a public good.

No one in this comment section is saying to you "stop using php on this project you're doing because it's badly designed". No one is in your business.
I think this is interesting as a discovery application. I also found it easy to use which I like.
The article is very confused but I think what it is trying to say the researchers are building a Hardware based Recurrent Neural Network that operates with Real Numbers (i.e. analog). Hence it will be exponentially more powerful than a turing machine. The possibility of being able to build a physical device that can harness the reals to infinite precision is a big assumption.

So this device is an example of a Hypercomputer. Its existence would disprove the Chuch-Turing Hypothesis. It would also be very difficult to verify that it was actually calculating what it claimed [1]. As a hypercomputer it could by definition solve the halting problem. It is also more powerful than a quantum computer.

Simple argument: a turing machine can inefficiently simulate a quantum computer. By definition a turing machine cannot simulate a hypercomputer. It could hence compute incomputable functions. And since it could tell whether a program will halt it could compute Chaitins constant. One consequence of that is the resolution of twin prime, goldbach's conjecture and other open number theory problems. It should also be able to compute Solomonoff's Universal prior and hence act in a bayes optimal manner. Strong AI.

If what is claimed can be done then this is a very big deal.

Some other implicit or explicit arguments in this article:

- Human brain is more than a turing maching

- turing machine will not be able to realize AI

- "Classical computers work sequentially and can only operate in the very orchestrated, specific environments for which they were programmed."

I do not buy any of those arguments. And am not sure what that last quote is supposed to mean.

[1] http://www.complex-systems.com/pdf/18-1-6.pdf

http://www1.maths.leeds.ac.uk/~pmt6sbc/docs/davis.myth.pdf
A shockingly large amount of non-PR driven, non-public event stories originate at the New York Times and are simply rewritten and repackaged by other news organizations.

It is a good bet that what is printed in the New York Times in the morning, goes on tv at CNN, MSNBC and even FNC for the day.
I tell you, Dwolla is going to disrupt VISA/MC in serious ways.
It's generally quicker to park and walk in than use the drive-though. (Except at Timmy's where nothing is quicker)

At In-and-out burger (the one reason good to live in Ca) there is generally a walk-up window by the drive-through so you can park and beat the queue.

If you feel this is un-america you could always leave the engine running while you wait.
I was surprised that having less part numbers wasn't one of the counter-arguments the author included. Because Apple has so few products it makes their supply and distribution chains more efficient. The economies of scale are a huge part of their profitability.

Thats why I assume they will have the same number of laptop models or less in the future.
Crashlytics raises $5M for mobile app crash reporting
I do this too. Except I use screen a lot more than I use TMUX. A bit old fashioned, I know.
The legal issues are not as simple outside of Canada.
I was a little surprised when they released the Thunderbolt Display without a built-in optical drive. I fully expected them to make that into a de-facto docking station and drop the drive from all portables and the Mac Mini (they did so on the latter) - a slimline drive and controller would have added very little cost considering the Thunderbolt electronics (i.e. a PCIe bus) are already in there anyway.

But then the whole Thunderbolt thing really hasn't taken off - I suspect Intel is artificially keeping the bridge chips' away from general availability to keep prices high. Which has resulted in a rather lacklustre product line-up one year after launch.
UCoz – Free Online Website Builder To Create Beautiful Websites
I don't live in Downtown DC, but by apartment complex is in a great area for walking. http://www.walkscore.com/apartments/details/801-15th-street-...

Within one block of my house is a park, a subway stop, a mid sized mall, a variety of restaurants etc. I find it's easier to walk to most places in the area than get in my car and then look for parking. Honestly, most of the high density parts of Arlington Virginia are vary walkable because it's both high density and mixed use.
Exactly.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Telephone_recording_laws#United...
@jonknee - It's true there could be less. That's a future optimization. Here's the type of requests that are happening...

ajax/get-accounts

ajax/get-streams

ajax/get-other-settings

ajax/store-client-view

ajax/get-tweets

ajax/sync-relationships
It's easy. Find an old laptop with 512mb ram or more (you should be able to obtain one for free).
Install a Linux OS (I like CentOS)
Fire up apache/mysql or your server software of choice
Point your domain name at your IP address.

I have a business internet connection at home. Even though it's mostly for personal use, it's a couple of extra dollars a month (not much) and I get 2 static IP addresses, and I'm explicitly allowed to run servers.

It's an excellent learning experience. But if it's for business, pay the money for a VPS!
When I load a dynamic page with content that isn't ready, I push the missing content requests it into an array. When the page is done loading, it polls the server with the data it needs. Server replies with data and client keeps polling every second or so for more stuff until it's done.

Update: I will never be without work.
Nick Bilton to write a book on Twitter
Fixing Date, Time and Zone on RHEL 6 command line
Ninth Circuit Adopts a Narrow Interpretation of Computer Fraud and Abuse Act
maybe, and maybe, because we bought a more expensive one, there was no call/pressure to upsell? they'd already hit a profit min for that sale? still, I'm not even sure we were offered an extended warranty. Well... maybe. been a few months now - can't remember.
Virtual Microsoft Office for iPad: A bit blurry, but free, and legal
Would the manufacturers still be responsible if the record feature came with big warnings on the phone, along the lines of "By enabling this feature, you agree to follow local and federal laws with regards to wiretapping, including possibly having to notify all parties before recording a conversation"?
How about Australia to France? That is what I am doing and I can feel the lag sometimes.
Agreed, rails is hard. Personally I prefer Sinatra and Ramaze since they are much simpler to understand.
Skype Hits 40 Million Simultaneous Users
Simpler solution:

Add MBA with 15" screen.

Retina display only on MBP models.

Nice stair step pricing and less confusing overlap. Either slimmer and lighter or faster and better graphics. No 11" MBP because people demanding nice graphics want bigger displays. No 17" MBA b/c thin and huge doesn't appeal to anyone.
What does the D in DCPU stand for? Notch's DCPU16 spec does not say.
AXFR support is ready, check slave function from the manual:

http://www.luadns.com/help.html#functions
750GB Solid State Drive for $145
Why doesn't let us the iPhone block incoming phone numbers? It's rediculous!
Ink Signature on Adobe Reader for iOS & Android
As far as jquery goes we have to sign up or take your word for it?
Might as well throw in Berkeley. I lived next door to CAL and walked every day to cafes, restaurants, bars, supermarkets, parks, etc.

New Orleans fits this as well, as I also lived in the Tremé. I biked and walked everywhere. It was great
This is more the middle classes separating themselves from a perceived (yet not necessarily existent) other.
Rick Santorum drops 2012 campaign for president
> Other languages have some sort of warning suppression as well

But there is a huge difference here. PHP directly encourages it, making it so easy to do "just prefix it with @" and dedicating a part of the core language syntax to it (thus spending such a nice character for such a triviality). I believe (correct me if I'm wrong) that in Java, it is just another annotation, and in C# just another preprocessor directive.

And I think that's what the article is about - so many things are wrong in the very foundation of the language.
hackaday.com currently has a contest running to answer that very question.
First Windows 8 PC launched by Toshiba-hardware specifications
Toshiba claims it’s the first all-in-one model that’s completely Windows 8-ready.
This explanation makes me daydream about a new social app that convinces FOO million Facebook users to join just on the promise that each user gets a stake in the payout when it gets bought. How impossible is it to get 30 million people on board for an average payout of $30 each? Maybe some game mechanics could help... get more of your friends to join "Let's-eat-FB's-lunch-agram" and you get a larger payout.
Brain-injury data used to map intelligence in the brain
Corrected URL: https://www.coursera.org/course/automata
My 13" MBA is the absolute best computer I have ever owned (and I have been using laptops daily for 15 years).
I'll second that -- I loved living in Downtown Denver, and still visit as much as I can. Funny, when I was reading about the seven-minute commute in Nashua, I thought "that sounds like the commute I had in Downtown Denver," then saw your comment.

I'm now living 6 miles out in Olde Town Arvada. It's actually a neat walkable area with coffee shops, brewpubs, etc., although there are no major tech employers within walking distance. (I work from home.)
Yes, it's certainly different in some states. But I think that even if phones had a big red "Push to record" button, that would at least allow users to warn other parties that they want to record the call, at which point they could push the button.
Why not follow the Google Voice model and have a key combo that will play a disclaimer to both parties and start recording?
Totally false. There are no blocking provisions whatsoever in CISPA, no one has any right to the information from ISPs or any other provider or organization, and it does not supercede other provisions. ("The phrase "notwithstanding..." is boilerplate language that is not interpreted by the courts the way a layman might.)
"The law, at least in Canada, allows anyone to record a conversation they are apart of without the consent of the other party for their own personal reference, or journalistic purposes."

In my view, the US Federal and State laws on wiretapping are crazy and all over the place.

Things that are illegal for the cops should not be the same as things that are illegal for citizens.

And there seems to be a lot more good reasons to allow citizens to record calls (without notification of the other party) they are part of than there are reasons to disallow them.
Maybe yes, maybe no, that'd be something the courts would have to decide, which means a gamble for the manufacturer (with little to no payoff)
I would add low cost to that list.

HN's fascination with cloud computing and massive scalability is not representative of web dev in the rest of the boring world. The vast majority of web sites out there are powered by shared hosting, where the norm is to cram 1,000 sites on a cPanel server. Apache+PHP makes economic sense in this environment because when your site isn't getting any requests, it uses no resources. But if everybody started running a persistent Django or Rails process in the background, or if every customer had to be given a VPS, hardware and maintenance requirements would quickly exceed what the provider can profitably offer.

I can host a small website on NearlyFreeSpeech for $0.30 per month plus bandwidth, even less before they introduced a surcharge for dynamic websites. One of my old clients is hosted on another pay-as-you-go shared host, where she incurs all-inclusive charges of $0.07 per month on average. (The site is mostly static, with a PHP guestbook.) Like it or not, PHP makes this possible by folding the app server into the web server, and a lot of effort has gone into making such an environment reasonably secure without blowing up resource requirements. Even if you use a regular shared host that charges $8.95 per month, that's still cheaper than a medium-quality managed VPS.

The current state of shared hosting might not be anything to write home about, but the low cost (compared to a VPS) allows anybody, including dirt poor students, to run a web site without being held hostage to a less customizable service that might or might not exist tomorrow, e.g. Posterous. I think this contributes to technical literacy and independence in a small but unique way. Any realistic alternative to PHP had better meet the same requirements.
Manufacturers about 6+ years ago used to allow this. Almost every Windows Mobile phone I had had the ability to do this with a custom application.

I would suspect the manufacturer wouldn't be liable if you put a disclaimer on it but IANAL. It would sure be nice, however...
Measure Your Worth with Influence, Not with Achievement
I do this a lot, particularly with projects that use a database that might be hard to configure (and the configuration isn't fully scripted). Just get the development version of the DB right once, and then make a copy of the machine in case you mess things up later and need to revert. It's saved me a lot of DB rebuilds, and I don't have to do DB migrations on both my laptop and desktop to keep them up-to-date so that I can run tests from either.