skysight-inc/HackerNews huggingface dataset:
Can You Decode This Probably Made-Up Text Lingo?
Draw Something loses 4M users in the past month
Unless you use relatively unpopular software, or you want updates the same day a new version comes out, chances are that someone has probably already done the work for you.
It seems to me that if you like the challenge, you are in fact happy being challenged...
"People used to say shit like this on slashdot all the time"

I think that to myself about at least one HN article/comment every day :)
First look at the Galaxy S3
> I sure as hell could appreciate a new HTTP-standard, which was brought to the field by having professionals (maybe even IETF!) work together and reason about things publically

This is a good point, for instance the developers of Spdy don't actually compare it to HTTP pipelining. They don't measure the effect of 'head of line blocking', just assuming it is a major problem. They don't consider that the protocol performs worse than HTTP over satellite and similar links. Neither the design choices nor specific details have been vetted or backed up by real deliberations.

There are tons of ways a committee of experts could improve Spdy, but it looks like Google is just going to show up with their draft RFC and demand a rubber stamp.

But this is just typical Google. Even when they do work with committees they show up and for instance say 'add big integers to JavaScript or else' (the 'or else' being Dart).
Ruby has "yield" which, while possible to replicate in Obj-C, it's not nearly as nice. Also, Ruby can yield arguments, and the block being yielded to is free to ignore those arguments. That's the sort of flexibility that can make Ruby so much more enjoyable to work with in high-level code.
Spring 3 and Java EE 6 - An unfair and incomplete comparison
Facebook IPO to Seek $85 Billion to $95 Billion Value
Last time I checked median income across the US population was around $50k, so maybe you should count your blessings.

Also what does constantly being on-call have to do with programming? Plenty of professionals have to deal with this across the board. And plenty of programmers don't have to.
How To Fix Popchips' Racist Ad Campaign
Not to be crude, but if you want me to be honest about what I think, I think it shouldn't be in Flash. Then I could try it now and tell you what I think about the game itself...

I’d just say, in general, that when you see a mounting trend away from a platform (or anything really), and you’re looking to launch something new, it’d probably be best not to launch on that platform. I mean, even Microsoft (renowned for its briskness in responding to change...) is shifting away from Flash by not supporting it in the Metro version of IE10 in Windows 8. I (and really, not trying to rail on you here) just don't understand why people keep developing new content utilizing Flash..?
Wow, this actually looks like something better than either old disqus or fb comments. I'm tempted to finally get around to setting up a blog again to try it out. (I had kind of given up on the idea of a blog comment network once disqus semi-stagnated, and fb comments became more common).

I'm amazed at how much worthwhile comment (albeit with a horrible SNR) is still trapped in phpBB forum sites, blog comments, and other basically painful to access places. Within startups and technology, generally quora or hn or stack overflow or blogs themselves seem adequate, but whenever I search for info about my car, firearms, legal, DIY, etc., it feels like a bad version of 2003.

There's still no good solution to the "local newspaper comment quality problem", though.
Does it support SSL yet? Last I checked (admittedly, about 6 months ago), it seemed Disqus could not be used at full-SSL sites.
I think Debian/Ubuntu with Gnome 3 is a winner. I love the interface.
Enjoy the Kool-Aid. And the burn-out.

No more than 40 hours per week and 30 days paid vacation is not "entitlement", it's common sense. It helps to keep people healthy, happy and productive. QED.

Sure, it's doable, and sometimes even necessary (but not even half as much as people like to think) if you're doing a start-up, but as a steady job, it's neither in the employee's nor in the employer's interest.
Not sure why you getting downvoted

Because he takes a scientific study based on actual data, calls it "bullshit", and substitutes his own pet theory of happiness, maybe?
Unfortunately, government policies that make such thinks possible are called 'socialist' on the other side of the pond.

They are called 'Socialist' here (EU) aswell.

* The 2nd largest political party in the European Parliament is.... "Progressive Alliance of Socialists and Democrats".

* The UK Labour Party (many times in government) has a footer to "Affiliated socialist societies" in it's homepage ( http://www.labour.org.uk/home ) (Though it's not really viewed as socialist party in UK as much now that it's "New Labour").

* The "Core Party Principles" of the Irish Labour Party (which is in government) starts with: "The four principles on which Socialism is based are …" ( http://www.labour.ie/principles/ )

The difference is that "socialist" isn't a dirty word in European countries.
Speed is what you're missing.

Not to denigrate you or your statement, and yes Objective-C is not that hard to learn, but it comes down to speed.

If I've never programmed in Objective-C and if I'm experienced in Ruby my time from concept to live iPhone app can be FAR quicker by using the tools/language I'm already familiar with (regardless of which tools/language).

Remove the concept of learning a new language, a new IDE, and only require that I learn a new lib to work against and I'm FAR quicker.

Yes, there may be some limitations. But this is iterative development. Build something as solid and quick as possible, and give users the chance to play with it. If it works, and you need more flexibility, it's reasonable to spend the time on learning new tools/languages.
The HUD is one the most significant UI changes to hit the Linux Desktop in recent years, and I see how a lot of people will find it useful. But it's probably also going to be one of the most controversial changes, perhaps even more than the introduction of Unity (which has many more precedents).

In particular, it will be difficult to get even the most adventurous users to use complicated apps like GIMP (which the screenshot shows) exclusively with the HUD. When there are hundreds of functionalities you could choose from and you don't remember the exact name, the traditional menu is much more discoverable. At the moment, HUD only complements the menu without replacing it altogether. But if the HUD is some day going to replace the menu, it will probably need to incorporate some of the features of the traditional menu on the way. I hope Canonical remains responsive to feedback during the transition period. Shuttleworth has an unfortunate tendency to go all Steve Jobs and insist that it's either his way or highway when it comes to UI decisions.

It's also going to be interesting to see how HUD works in touchscreen devices where using the keyboard can be a significant amount of hassle. You could rely on gestures to some extent, but not all actions you perform on a computer can be easily represented with intuitive gestures. So Ubuntu's UI may need to split up again into desktop and tablet editions, after all.

As for myself, I feel rather frustrated with these changes because I love my little plastic rodent. I really don't like taking my hand off the mouse to type something.
Agreed. We did this with LESS for the brand palettes on http://www.evanta.com (ignore the awful homepage/logos) and it saved us a lot of time that let me experiment with other techniques and tweaks that I wouldn't have been able to get to otherwise.

It's a pretty beastly stylesheet in the end, but it's a great method to learn/optimize for future projects.
That and if you have a lease the landlord very likely requires you to carry liability insurance.
I consider it more of a modern-day system of patronage divided amongst many people (instead of a singular wealthy individual).
Well and also, "rich" is of course relative. I'm absolutely confident a midlevel Google engineer's salary would put him in the top 1% of folks in my hometown (even adjusted for cost of living). And that's just keeping it to the United States.
>So, it surprises me that 87% of the people have notifications turned on.

I have 8 email accounts on my BlackBerry, and audiovisual and tactile alerts are on for all but one of them (my Yahoo account, where the newsletters go.). I'm a freelancer, and after a major marketing campaign, I like to be able to respond immediately to queries from potential clients. Makes a very good impression.

>Do people just have that important of email communication going back and forth?

Yes. For instance, I have an email account dedicated to Namecheap notifications, which is also auto-forwarded to an account from a different provider. If someone logs into my Namecheap account and messes with my domains, I need to know now. Not tomorrow.

Your email is the key to modern digital life. Some things simply can't wait.
This week I tried Ubuntu 11.10 on VMWare and absolutely hated it. Nothing makes sense in Unity! If you're going to make something different at least make it more efficient or more intuitive - it's neither. I ended up going with XFCE not from performance issues but because I was sick of having to use Google to figure out basic things.

I couldn't believe how I angry and frustrated I became. I'm usually not that invested in things like this, and tbh I really wanted to like it. If I'm representative of at least a fraction of the userbase then they should have a look at why people like me are reacting this way.

EDIT - I'm getting hammered with the downvotes so I'd genuinely like to hear why. I'm not trying to troll and I bring these things up because I want Ubuntu to succeed but I think they're missing something incredibly important right now in their approach.
SS50(A) in CDP as amended refers to backups for computer programs. I'm thinking backups of media, DVDs, CDs. Time-shifting is allowed as you note but it limits you to view a single recording a single time, so you can watch a recording of a TV show but you must never "deal with" the copy once you've viewed it; moreover this only applies in domestic settings.

To consider UK "fair dealing" anything akin to US "fair use" is to not understand the scope of either IMO.
If you're a professional though you don't exactly have "zero money". The amount spent on a DSLR alone is bigger than what you'd spend in a Photoshop license.

The only way that would make the GIMP an alternative to photoshop would be for your time to be worth NOTHING.
Personal blog is launched
Fact: that's very difficult to explain. Many have asked the same question and got different answers. You can find some at stack exchange http://programmers.stackexchange.com/search?q=How+do+you+exp...
I was glad to see this popup on hacker news again. I'm a backer now. Personally, I do see this as more of a purchase than an investment.

I'd see it as a donation over an investment as well. To each their own.
congrats Ash & Team!
Maybe for debian, but when I tried updating PHP for PHP5.3 it was impossible to find a CentOS package, even a year after PHP5.3 was out.

We had to roll our own, which was fine, but the average end user (or the programmer wearing the sysadmin hat) doesn't have the capability to do that.
How ridiculous. You do realize that every programming community has "dogmatic and insular" people, right? There are Cocoa people I've talked with who were, seriously, the rudest human beings I've ever had the displeasure of talking to.

Douchebags are everywhere and it's sort of silly to paint an entire community with a broad brush. We're doing lots of good things, too, despite our own share of jerks.
OK, I said I would back at $50 if that included the early beta access, and now I have.
Google Drive: Sync vs. Backup Explained (And Why You Need Both)
Isn't that really the difference between something like:

def animate
UIView.begin_animation
yield
UIView.commit_animation
end

animate do
# Do something
end

and:

void animate(void (^block)(void))
{
[UIView beginAnimation];
block();
[UIView commitAnimation];
}

animate(^ {
// Do something
});

Which to my eye are pretty much exactly the same. In fact, UIView already provides a similar method built into the API.

Anyway, I don't want to diminish what you've accomplished. It's an awesome achievement regardless of the language you choose.
Yup we've supported SSL for almost that long now actually ;)

Just change the http:// prefix to https:// in the universal code (e.g., https://yourforumshortname.disqus.com/embed.js) and you're good to go. Works with all our files: embed.js, count.js, everything except media attachments (which we're working on).

Give it a shot. If it doesn't work holler our way at http://disqus.com/support. Happy to lend a hand.

UPDATE: Caveat: I'm referring to the current version of Disqus, not Disqus 2012. SSL support for 2012 is on our radar.
The rise of the LLC
The internet is a quixotic place.

I have known homeless artists, poets and musicians who were much happier than some very wealthy people I've met. Creative endeavors are the most common, with lots of genuine friendships being high on the list as well.
I didn't see a link, but I'd be interested to know if and how the integration changes for sites implementing the new Disqus.

In any case, looks really good!
Given the examples in sibling posts, we have to step back and define what we mean by "experience" as opposed to "utility". Saying "X is experience" for everything renders it pretty much meaningless.
Can I have one tab for google, and the others for the rest of the web. Or, am I doomed to alt-tabbing between windows?
I don't deny that luck is a factor, but dwelling on luck will decrease your chances because successful entrepreneurs tend to focus on things they can control. That was my main point in response of the pessimism of the GP.

As for being paid in proportion to your work, that's not how markets work. You're paid in proportion to what someone is willing to accept to the task. If you want to be paid in proportion to what you're worth then you have to start your own company. That way if you're worth nothing you earn nothing and if you're worth a million dollars you make every penny. When you take a job you're essentially offsetting your upside with no downside risk, it's actually not a bad tradeoff considering how hard it is to make a $100k profitable business. A guy that could add $100m to Google's bottom line might not be able to do 1% of that by himself, so Google could pay him $90m, but why should they if he's willing to work for less?
Herb Sutter confirms no more support for C beyond C90 in Visual C++
When Altavista launched, it was an impressive showcase of the DEC Alpha's power. Intel only became usable for serious servers (with the exception of exotic stuff like Sequents), as did Linux, years later. Google had the good fortune to be in the right place at the right time, when Lintel became a commodity in the datacentre. 5 years earlier, they'd have been on Sun probably.
Rest assured that your attitude is far more insufferable and real than the "culture invasion" you're concerned about.
Forgive my ignorance of iOS, but do the current Objective-C based tools deliver "An interactive shell [...] for introspection, live coding and debugging" ? If RubyMotion can actually deliver a real first-class REPL that works, that would be a pretty huge deal. Lack of a REPL is the biggest reason why I dislike mobile (Android) development.
Discovery Gets a Web Video Arm, Courtesy of Revision3
The Acorn version was called Zarch. It was later ported to some other platforms (Amiga, in particular) and renamed Virus.

Lander was awesome.
TechBASIC, a scientific BASIC environment for the iPad
Now there is an alternative to Objective-C in iOS development(for Rubyists). This is similar to development of Coffescript. There is nothing wrong with Objective-C, it is just that folks who prefer the elegance and beauty of Ruby have an option. I think this will be great combination - beautiful & elegant language for creating apps on a beautiful platform.
tl;dr: Long rant about Android internals. I work with them.

Quote: "The notable exception, of course, is Android, but that may well be the exception that proves the rule: only a company with the financial resources of Google can hope to take on responsibility for that much code and hope to maintain it over the long term."

If you start studying (or working with) the internals deep enough, you'll find out that Android is full of stupid technical decisions which cannot be sustainable in the long run. Having a Google-sized budget helps but there are some really weak links in there.

I'll give two examples: the first one is Android's C library, Bionic. It seems like Android wanted to avoid using GNU libc just to avoid the need for having to upstream local changes due to GPL licensing in glibc. So they went ahead and wrote a friggin' C library, arguably the most peripheral and boring of all the software components in an operating system. And also one that's quite laborious to put together and maintain. It takes special character to do that. Ask Ulrich Drepper.

You may argue that Android doesn't need all of glibc or that Bionic does it's job. From a customer perspective that may be true, but a customer does not see the libc anyway. But in reality, there's lots of hard work going on every day to ship products with Bionic. I've been watching that happen a lot recently. A lot of these issues seem to be related to threading and C++ ABI issues. The issues that glibc was struggling with 15 years ago.

Another bad example is Android's 2d graphics library, Skia. It is the reason why Android home screen looks so crappy slow compared to certain competing products. It has a similar API to a lot of graphics packages that were popular in the 1990's. It includes bitmap blitters and so on. They have some optimizations to use NEON SIMD instructions, but it's inherently a software (CPU) graphics lib. The synchronous API offers no opportunity for hardware acceleration. I am under the impression that Skia would be going away from Android and that's a good thing.

I promised two examples, but I'll give one for a bonus: Android's proprietary interprocess communication mechanism that's implemented in the kernel (can't remember it's name). It was designed to avoid a memcpy call when passing stuff from one process to another. That was a reasonable solution with slow uniprocessor computers of early 2000's but that ship has sailed. These days this kind of things are better done in the user space, like Dbus, which is used by most desktop (and some mobile) linux distros.

Whoa, what a rant. But it only tells one thing: I'd much rather work with a GNU/Linux system than an Android one.
Congrats to Rev3. They've always produced some really good content and a lot of stuff I've watched as religiously as I would a TV programme.

I think the price is interesting. Especially when you compare it to other exits, particularly Instagram. AFAIK Rev3 had a decent, proven business model and have been growing and expanding in different directions (distributing content from other content producers). We don't know exactly why Instagram was bought (defensive move, user/photo data) but when you compare the two the Instagram price seems ridiculous.

(I personally think buying Instagram was a smart move by Facebook and I understand the price it just seems crazy when you compare the exit of a company with a proven business model to that of a company with no business model and no plan for one).
I dunno, I think a lot of us love LISP :)
There was nothing wrong with Altavista's algorithm for "finding stuff" - it was just too vulnerable to SEO pollution. I remember the quality of it declining almost overnight once spammers (yes that's what SEOs are) figured it out.
The same applies to music. There are great variations in taste and there are people who exist who can't appreciate music at all. But it would clearly be absurd for them to claim that music is a case of emperor's clothes. I see your point though.
There's no changes required by publishers (users implementing Disqus). It works with the same embed code as before.
Inktomi killed Inktomi long before Google helped put the nail in the coffin.

What the article doesn't say is Inktomi had a dual sided business. One side was in Caching Proxies the other was licensing a search API.

Inktomi decided to focus on the caching proxy business and de-emphasized their search product, only to watch the proxy business evaporate as internet bandwidth became cheaper/better.

The focus on a shrinking market (proxies) and the lack of focus on growing market (search) killed them. Had search been a priority from the beginning things may have ended very differently with Inktomi creating their own front end.
I have two reactions to this.

1) Welcome to the Internet; if you're high profile, you're going to get attacked. This is the new reality and why companies like Facebook or Google support/tolerate cybersecurity legislation. The growth in threats just in the last 12 months has been significant.

2) Your site loaded instantly for me, and you're asking for money...color me suspicious. At minimum I'd like to see some actual evidence before believing that Rupert Murdoch or Exxon are DDOSing your site.
Anyone know how much funding they have gotten. I'm happy for them, but it doesn't seem like a big win.

The thought of TRS or some of their other shows showing up on cable makes me super happy
Project HiJack - connecting sensors to a smartphone's headphone jack
I'm surprised that anybody took the 'secret guild' thing so literally. To me it reads as a metaphor for the iceberg of interconnected talent hidden below the surface.
$16 for the whole thing? The board, the sensor, the connectors, the power supply? I don't think it's even close to that.
Now if only we could have SSL with name based virtual hosts

We can: it's called SNI (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Server_Name_Indication). Unfortunately browser support isn't quite there; recent versions the major desktop browsers do support it, but e.g. the stock Android browser does not (because Apache HttpClient does not).
Building segment trees with Golang, benchmark with JavaScript version
Sorry but no. Interpreting an IP address as identifying a user isn't a matter of interpreting the spirit of the law it's simply making a factual error. Should an IP address be sufficient to allow a search to be made? Certainly in a criminal case.

It is similar to the case of catching a speeding car but not being able to identify the driver (except speeding isn't a tort). You can't assume the owner is guilty unless the law is drafted to make it so that a car owner is responsible for all authorised use of their vehicle.

Talking about the spirit of the law is considering the law makers intentions and how they would have drafted the details in the current technological background.

Even if you narrow down the guilty party to one of a small group you can't convict the whole group or even a random member of the group on that strength alone. That's not how European or USA law works (though there may be other crime, withholding evidence, harbouring a criminal and such that members of the party would be guilty of).
Right. I found most of those. And, well, none of them really cover it. I do realize that this is a tough one to crack.
Compared to learning Cocoa (Touch), Objective-C is really nothing — especially since to use MacRuby you have to learn a bunch of kinda-awkward hacks they've stuck on top of Ruby to make it compatible with Objective-C (e.g. the "def foo(bar, baz:quux)" syntax and Pointers). It's a very simple language. Unless you are exceptionally bad at learning syntax, you're really not saving yourself a whole lot of time.
Do you think that would have affected their prospects for success?