skysight-inc/HackerNews huggingface dataset:
"Microsoft's execution in mobile has been excellent".

This could not be farther from reality. Microsoft has consistently lost money in the mobile market, to a point they are ashamed of it, and don't even give sale figures for the Windows Phone OS anymore. Profits from this business unit is reported in the "Entertainment and Devices" unit, which has turned a loss this quarter, again, of $229M.

The only argument the author makes for claiming Microsoft's execution has been excellent is that "Windows Phone 7 is really good". Well, guess what? It may or may not be true that Windows Phone 7 is good, but it takes a whole lot more than a good OS to make a profit. You need to establish a community of developers who will write apps for your platform, you need to create an easy-to-use market place for end-users, you need to talk to phone manufacturers to make plenty of phones running your OS, you need to make deals with carriers to sell your phones, etc.

Microsoft has failed at most of this, hence their financial losses. Microsoft's execution in the mobile market is, so far, a failure, and Ballmer is partly responsible.
Mark Zuckerberg: Smart or Lucky? [POLL]
A register interface (the VGA registers, let's say) is not a "specific, fundamental expression on an idea"? Say what? The register interface is (quite literally!) a physical machine that implements the idea. It's much more concrete than any piece of software ever could be.

I re-read that post several times to be sure. I honestly think you're managed to get your head into a space where you're confusing up with down. This is just plain wrong, and shockingly so.
The messy truth is that Google has created only a half-open ecosystem. 98%+ of Android users are at the mercy of the carriers and handset makers for updates. That's not a truly open ecosystem.
9%... sooo the stock market holds 91%, sounds like it's beholden to me.
It's both. Great content and popular content both get seeded quite a bit, even as they age.
As far as I know they don't have any special deals. They use the open graph "watch" action, and when you install the app you give it permission to post this action (it is the publish_actions permission). What you are seeing on the feed are aggregations of that action. They also show up in the ticker.

As an aside, I do know that Pinterest is allowed to do somethings that other apps are not. I've heard that there are some feature whitelists, and it looks like Pinterest was whitelisted for at least one of them (the ability to send a message to more than one recipient).
How to Assert Copyright Over Your Work When It’s Been Plagiarized
This should be a mandatory read for every business guy who wants to run his or her own start-up. I wish I could have read this post three years ago. I still look back in horror on how I interacted with coders or with my technical co-founder before I started to learn to code myself.

I guess the bottom line to the whole discussion started by Jeff is:
Not everyone should become a coder, not everyone can become a (good) coder, and not everyone wants to become a coder. But if you really feel like learning to code is the only way not to get left behind in this rapidly changing world (vs just doing it becomes everybody thinks it's cool nowadays), go for it!
Yes -- and no. You have to remember that outside of a few countries, unlimited internet isn't ubiquitous. Admittedly, NZ is basically a worst-case scenario (we're connected to the rest of the world by a single pipe, access to which is - was - priced expensively), and we've recently seen an explosion of data caps ($130 for 550GiB from one provider, now), but that's only a very recent development. Some ISPs charge up to $2 a GiB - still.

So, using BT and seeding becomes a less valid option. Still, I'll happily admit that things are changing, and if NZ is a yardstick of the bad, then BT as a distribution mechanism (backed by, say, Akamai or other CDNs) for legal content could definitely take off.
Probably because the software is perfect.
That's a $10m account of money wasted by unimaginative people.

You can go nuts with FB ads, you just simply have to get past the notion that it works the same way as every other medium. Unlike AdWords, where you bid on someone searching for "Cadillac SRX" in San Jose, FB is all about inception of interest.

The goal is to create intent in people through innovative ways; the people that spend the millions and keep doing so are the ones who actually, you know, come up with something new.

This is the same story as Google AdWords back in the day.
Android is fragmented in the way that Windows or Linux are fragmented. The same OS, many different hardware devices, manufacturers and OS/patch levels.

People have done OK making software for these systems.
Hacking A Decade Of Transformation
As far as I can see each of the transformations listed in this article have hacking a system at the heart of the disruption
I think the missing "on Verizon" in the Hacker News link is a critical oversight (or intentional flamebait) - it's worth noting that the Galaxy Nexus on every other carrier has received updates.
No. "normal people" call them hyphens. I think it is a mainly USian curiosity to call hyphens dashes. The Rest of the World calls hyphens, well, hyphens. It's only the US that call them dashes. I've no idea why that is.
AMD contends its split-personality PC brains are better than Intel’s
I like the honor-system discount for the full season - a nice touch.
This was my first thought, too. First it's "why would GM want to hurt Facebook" but now I'm up to "which banks backed Facebook's IPO vs which banks are helping out with GM's reorganization" so I guess it looks like a little like Facebook isn't the real target.
BitTorrent is like a lock pick set. There are valid uses such as if you've locked yourself out of your house, but if the majority of people use a lock pick set to unlock the back door to a movie theater and sneak in to watch movies without paying no doubt it would be perceived similarly.
What's faster than one mirror and works when bittorrent doesn't? Twenty mirrors:

aria2c --split=20 MIRROR1 MIRROR2 MIRROR3 MIRROR4 … MIRROR20
The concerned geek in me agrees with you on all counts, but I'm afraid this should never be taken as universally true. BUT, I do remember a time when that was not an issue I cared about. I loved the fact that e product knew exactly what it wanted to do– if I liked it, I didn't have to do anything and it would integrate. That was awesome. It's only years later with the realization that all of this data exists somewhere and can be used in nefarious (or really, just annoying) ways– that I began to care. Most of my non-tech friends think the same way. They assume that it's an app on facebook, why wouldn't it tell people what I'm doing?. They're still sensitive to more 'traditional' privacy– i.e. talk to your ex in MESSAGES, not on your wall– but everything else is a feature that is genuinely desired. The devil's advocate says that those who care should either know to turn it off, or be more discriminating with the toys they play with.
Like the article. However, I am undecided if I will urge my son to get into coding. I will teach him, but does it really make for a great career?
The one good thing about it seems to be that you can create some stuff with very little resources (not everything the world needs, though -yet, anyway). And yet I wonder if other professions are not more likely to lead to happiness. The often cited people interactions could be a factor, for example. Sure, programmers have clients and colleagues, but other jobs might have people interactions that are more emotional in nature.

So how about you, would you urge your kids to become software developers? Poll time?
Your friends probably tried to do the same thing that they were doing on AdWords, but targeting people instead of keywords. (I am assuming here, so please correct me if I'm wrong)

This doesn't work because they have to approach the people differently; for wedding planning, I would instead do something along the lines of "read these 10 tips to keep your wedding amazing" or "use our free wedding plan tracker"

With an approach based on interest, your friends can educate people and get them thinking in order to follow up for more information. Instead of a hard sell, hit them with a soft one that helps them feel like your friends know what they need.
Apparently you. Have you thought about reading the post, rather than just the title? The same exact statement could be applied to the title of your post "Please don't become anything, especially not a programmer"

Nice article by the way, and thanks for your work.
Eventually there may be something that the youth of America switch to because Facebook is no longer "cool", but it's so ingrained in everyone else's life that I don't see it going away that easily.
Hypersonic: Subsonic client for iOS
That wasn't obvious from the article, thanks for clarifying. I guess he (deservedly) isn't well known outside of Denmark...
Well done.

It would also be nice not to have to use large install scripting languages (Perl, Python, Ruby), Java or Go, in order to communicate with AWS, e.g., EC2.

Let us be thankful for XML and the popular idea of "it's already done for you, just install this bloated library and read these 320 pages of documentation".

If API's mean you can't debug something without having to install Java or some huge, complex scripting language, I'm not sure they've simplifed anything. They've just added another layer of abstraction. More work should anything ever go wrong. And eventually, something always does go wrong.

Maybe S3 should just be rysnc servers running in Xen. Just cut to the chase.
GM's advertising contract is up maybe?

Lower price? Oh hey maybe we will try again!
Google picks offsetting projects that are more valuable than average; details are here: http://static.googleusercontent.com/external_content/untrust...

I saw a talk recently about how much solar and wind power Google buys, and it's not at all cost effective. Google does it because they think it's cool, not because it saves them money. (But, the rate of return on the investment into wind infrastructure tends to be pretty good; wind power can be sold at a higher price than regular power.)

As an example, look at the Googleplex in Maps some time; all the parking spaces are covered with solar cells to charge the specially-converted fleet of plug-in-hybrids available for employees to borrow during the day. Building solar cells and custom-modding cars to give to employees for free is not exactly "saving them a lot of money". But it sure is cool.
'Symbolic Integration'? Sounds a bit more interesting than 'equal'.

Lisp was quickly used to program complex stuff, even on tiny machines. McCarthy's group worked on AI stuff like game playing, theorem proving, language understanding, ...

In the early 60s the first self-hosting compiler was a Lisp compiler written in Lisp.

Or see the work on symbolic integration by Joel Moses:
http://www.softwarepreservation.org/projects/LISP/MIT/MIT-LC...
Offered on HN: Free ebook on ecommerce
> With Facebook there is zero helpful intent. The only intent when you're on Facebook is to use Facebook.

It isn't about intent - it is about interest.

> And if you do click an ad, you're less likely to become a conversion because your intent is still to get back to Facebook as soon as possible and see the rest of Dave's party photos or whatever.

Not necessarily. I'm working with a customer right now where I have a 24% conversion rate on movie tickets. They routinely shell out $7-$21 a pop with this conversion rate; the catch is, I have to be very careful about who I target.

This kind of trend goes across the entire industry of FB ads - target well, optimize and approach based on interest and the money will follow.
The register interface of a VGA card was copyright IBM 1989, but that wasn't the question.

The question was whether the fundamental operation of a von Neumann machine was copyrightable. No, it isn't. That's just an idea, not a specific expression.

An example I grew up with was convincing a VGA adapter to go into 320x240 mode. That was a rather clever hack. The original source code to do it was copyrightable. He published it in Dr. Dobb's journal in 1991 and then later in his own book.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mode_X
"I wouldn't say that people should always totally be logical."

Oh no, I didn't mean to imply that. What I meant is I believe it's a skill everyone should have, using it or not is a situation based thing.

I believe learning to program is a good vehicle to learn that skill in school.

"I would say that one of the skills it teaches is the ability to think more logically. I also actually don't think that's the best skill it teaches. I think it gives people a bunch of other skills, and that "logic" is kind of secondary to the others."

I agree, it's definitively not the only thing it teaches. Same as Math not just being about learning to count, add, multiply... Yet you should know how to do those things.
Half of Americans call Facebook a fad
I'm sure learning a second language is fun, but I get annoyed when people try and make it seem like it's absolutely vital to do so.

I'm guessing you're a native English speaker? Because I can tell you that in many parts of the world, learning a second language is essential if you want a decent job and access to the vast amounts of knowledge, culture and people that the Internet provides.
Working with the Twitter Streaming APIs
That takes me back to the days of "military strength encryption", in the 90s, when you weren't allowed to let any code that used a longer than 40-bit encryption key to leave the country because it was too dangerous.
On the way to the last information spot, your Google Mail goes through an undisclosed rack. This rack symbolizes the new NSA data spy center in Utah.
Relatedly, github insists on this width in both their language style guides and code windows on the web site. The VT100 had a 132 columns and was released 34 years ago!

Why are we still limiting code to 80 characters per line?
I'm currently trying to keep the app simple and clutter-free, so it's been a challenge not to pack it full of every feature that comes to mind. Sublists would definitely make it onto the feature-list; I think they're handy and my first prototype had infinite sublists. At this point, I'm not sure how I could integrate that in, but I'll keep it in mind. Thanks for your comment!

(Also, left/right arrows allow you to traverse days or months, and the down arrow focuses the add-task field.)
Hello? Goodbye? Psst...World?
0.051% is actually pretty good. Don't compare with Facebook, compare with other DSP and ad networks for banners - FB and Google are complete opposites.
I wasn't under the impression that advertising (for a company like GM) was supposed to "work" in any easily measurable way. Especially not $10million of a budget which, though undefined, is clearly large if they are trying to cut $2 billion from it.

I think that to measure the efficacy of a GM ad based on the same measurable activity that you'd measure an ad for (say) a T shirt company is probably a bit misinformed. No one is checking to see if anyone clicked on GM and subsequently bought a Cadillac.

A lot of the comments on the original article seem similarly misguided. ("I NEVER CLICK ON THE ADS I HARDLY EVER NOTICE THEM.") The McDonalds logo on the back fence of a baseball field isn't to convince you to walk over to it and do something. It's so that later when you drive by McDonalds you "decide" to stop.
Poll shows most users distrust Facebook
The wrong Carlos: how Texas sent an innocent man to his death
A typical AK-47 is select fire. So someone hunting deer with a fully automatic capable AK-47 would likely set it to semi-automatic.
It's not my ebook. I just saw it posted a few minutes ago here: http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=3979237

I thought it could use more visibility.

I was going to submit the post link as the submission but that showed up as dead. I am guessing there are rules against that.
Not for one CD, no. But many people who pirate music have amassed collections worth tens of thousands of dollars (had they been purchased legally). If you were to steal merchandise worth $20,000, yes, I think our laws are pretty strict about that.
Stuck with Java. Exactly.
Good news everyone:

"Google to sell flagship Nexus devices with multiple partners this fall, reports WSJ"

http://www.theverge.com/2012/5/15/3022682/google-direct-sale...

linking verge because, paywall.

Apparently google read my comment below, made a major business decision and leaked that to the WSJ all in the last hour.

Me ITT:

"Well they could keep their major vendors in the loop instead of just dumping the new code on them after each nexus launch..."
Whenever you authenticate an app in Facebook that can post to your feed, there is a drop down that lets you choose who can see your activity with the app. I always choose "just me" because of actions of apps like this. It's become the norm not the exception to auto share.

Facebook should add a clause to their ToS saying apps must actively ask for permission before posting. Twitter has done this and while there are a few bad smaller players, on the whole you don't see most apps using these spammy techniques.
Byron Sonne not guilty on G20 explosives charges
Maybe the title was edited after the post on HN... I don't know, just guessing.

Edit: Doesn't make sense, the link contains on-verizon.
3) Game patching (Blizzard (WoW, Starcraft, Diablo), Wargaming.net (World of tanks))

4) Distributing music and movies legally (Sub Pop, Nine Inch Nails, CBC)

5) Backend updates for distributed server systems (Facebook, Twitter)

Etc.
It's not even true on Verizon. They pushed an OTA to 4.0.2 soon after launch. Verizon did indeed decide to skip 4.0.3, for unstated reasons. Last I heard 4.0.4 (a month and a half old) was in the pipe, but who knows.

The broader point is valid, though. Google needs to make this happen, no one in the rest of the bucket brigade (not the handset vendors, and certainly not the carriers who bear the costs) cares about updates -- only Google and the users do. Or at the very least make it clear why, when AOSP "releases" a version, certain developer phones won't be getting it.
Hah, that's quite entertaining. Doing a non-bubbled search on Google has it at 2/3/4/5 for me. The site at #1 is, I'm assuming, much older.
I'm surprised as to why Facebook isn't looking in other sources of income instead of ads. Like e-commerce for example. Providing a platform for the gazillions of small to medium companies that already have an account would be IMHO a more wise decision. Or build an analytics platform and combine it with real time demographics and blow the competition away. I'm sure there are dozens of ideas as to what they could build and still we don't see anything innovating.

But then again perhaps their problem is intense scaling. With 800M users even the simplest idea becomes cumbersome in developing.
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Woulden't bittorrent be beneficial in NZ for popular torrents since not everybody needs to download the entire content through the Southern Cross Cable but instead could download some from local NZ peers?
ok. which relentless entrepreneur hasn't? This story is 3-4 years old.
My immediate reaction to this is that "Behemoth old company has not yet learned to optimize its Facebook messaging".
I wish more ads were like Wikipedia's: relevant, temporary and of great consequence. I don't see how they qualify for being "the worst".
You Have To Get Good Before You Get Better
It's drama.
"That's the power of intent and Facebook doesn't have that."

Sure they do...

Status Update from malandrew's mom: "OMG I can't wait to watch the new episode of The Good Wife tonight!"

Facebook ads: "Click here to watch The latest Episode of the Good Wife"

Facebook could has something better than Google intent in that they should be able to predict what you intend to search for before you go looking for it.
I don't like "would you kill X or Y" questions. For one details matter, and we have no details. For two it's just impossible to say sitting here in my comfy chair how I would react in some dire life-or-death situation.
Interestingly, Blizzard's implementation is so bad that I actually get better throughput by disabling P2P.

It makes no sense but I had several hours to play with it while waiting for SC2. I found similar complaints on their forums so hopefully they'll fix it someday.
In my experience ROWE has been a pretty great success. It's really beneficial for people who are problem-solvers, not time-clock monkeys. One of the most important aspects of successfully implementing ROWE is accountability and awareness. First, you have to have some metric to know if results are actually being produced. Second, your team needs to know what the metric is, so that they properly manage their time. Also, having some times where people are in the office together is really helpful for that face-to-face aspect. Company meetings, beer Friday, etc. all work well. Some people may prefer to have a minimum amount of time you should be in the office (maybe 25%). I would not suggest having company-mandated fun time though. It's not fun time when it's required. Last thing I'll say is, if you don't have accountability and awareness, people can coast for a long time without you knowing. Regular checkups will keep everybody on the same page, and identify problems quickly.
Fixed the typo. APIs should be copyrightable.
I definitively don't think it displaces creativity. I think it actually improves it in a sense. Hones creativity and makes it sharper. And as you said it makes it easier to communicate ideas more clearly. Definitively something important for programming.

I don't see any of these things being on their own the golden hammer. I like to view these skills (creativity, critical thinking, logical thinking...) as empowering each other. Programming is how I believe I got a lot of those things. Maybe I'm wrong and it's not the best way to go to get these for others.

" I simply let my mind explore the catacombs and the solution bubbles up from my subconscious."

I think the subconscious can be trained and get better.
Not all insults are ad hominem. For this to be ad hominem, he would have to be saying that the reason Attwood was wrong was because he "gets off on making beginners feel like they're worthless..."

Here's a quick illustration:

Ad Hominem:
Jeff Attwood gets off on being an ass. Therefore he is wrong.

Not Ad Hominem:
Jeff Attwood gets off on being an ass. Incidentally, he is also wrong.
http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-6MTFDFYHgzo/TyLtGzJmTfI/AAAAAAAAAD...
The Facts about Xfinity TV and Xbox 360: Comcast is Not Prioritizing
How experienced are these developers at Google?
Or, TV ads don't actually work very well. Since we can't track conversions, we don't really know. Advertisers are paying for it, so why rain on the parade?
Show HN: My Reading List, a simple Facebook app to share what you read
It seems to me like even if it was an ad, your mom's usage connected intent with desired result better than yours. Obviously confusion isn't great, but what she said she wanted to do was "watch the Good Wife", not "watch the Good Wife on CBS".
You're not helping either.

Is reading a book in a library stealing? Listening to a song on the radio? Watching a show over broadcast TV? What if I avoid commercials and never buy the TV show or album on disc? In utter isolation is that any different than someone torrenting an album and never buying it?

And how does it change things if some people who torrent albums nevertheless spend money on music? The whole premise of sharing being "piracy" is the idea that uncompensated consumption represents a loss of a sale. But is that any more or less true than it is with radio or TV?