skysight-inc/HackerNews huggingface dataset:
Yeah...not sure I buy it. I put pretty conservative responses and probably had a footprint smaller than the average middle-class American and still got over 20 slaves. Which doesn't really extrapolate well to the country as a whole.

What does it mean that 20 slaves work for you? Does it mean there are 20 slaves who at some point or another use products that you consume, or does it mean that there are an equivalent of 20 slaves working full-time for you (in terms of man-hours or something)? The former metric is rather meaningless since it's unclear what proportion of the labor of those 20 slaves benefits you. Is 1/1000th of their labor output? 50%? This makes a huge difference. The latter metric is meaningful, in that it would mean that you "employ" around 20 slaves. However the mathematics don't really work out in that case, since 20 slaves per person for hundreds of millions of Americans obviously doesn't make sense.

The way it's written as you point out seems to indicate that they're using the former metric, that is, the number of slaves involved in stuff you use, regardless of what proportion of their labor goes toward your lifestyle.
A 5 year monopoly on software ideas is no more ridiculous than a 5 year monopoly on mechanical ideas or chemical ideas.
Would you mind sharing information on that strategy?
Sure, but who decides when the joy of spending time with dad gives way to the joy of hacking?
the last few rounds of fundraising were odd--fb was already cash flow positive and they didn't do much with the cash aside from buy random small companies
It's kind of what happens when you hire developers that are expected to learn your code base in 24 hours. Their recent job posting reeks of unskilled management. I think you made the right choice skipping this app made for iOS only.
Regexbuddy was critical for success on three Regex heavy projects I worked on a few years ago. I still have it running on an old Windows PC.
I'm saving that for next week. ;-)

(seriously.)

It's really very simple for a child. C-x C-s, C-x C-c, and arrow keys. All they really need to do.

I thought about vim, but I think it would lead to too many confusing situations.

I have a printed "cheat sheet" up there for the boys. It has commands and keyboard shortcuts. They sometimes forget it exists, but at least Jacob can read and follow directions on it without any trouble.
The usual arguments for someone to settle a legal case are avoiding the costs of litigation, and a potentially ruinous award.

From Google's perspective, though, these may not be operating the way they usually do. Google, and particularly Android, are getting patent suits from all quarters, and have to think about the cost of all that litigation, not just this case. So, they might view the best outcome in this case as the one which is most likely to deter the next guy. Quietly settling for a low nine-figure sum is unlikely to achieve that; quiet settlements for that amount risk them having patent trolls lined up out the door from Mountain View to Gilroy. And after Oracle came in initially demanding billion-dollar damages up front plus a share of ongoing Android revenues, even that might not be enough for Oracle to "save face". (Edit: yes, I'm aware this is no longer strictly a patent case, but that's how it started, patents were an issue at trial, and once it goes to court, both parties are always throwing whatever they have at the wall.)

Also, at this point, the prospects of a large award against Google are (one hopes!) minimal --- they could only come after a reversal on appeal. And, in addition to Alsup's trial court ruling, they can count on a flood of amicus briefs pointing out (correctly, IMHO) how reversal would be calamitous for the industry. So, that's a gamble Google might want to take. And Oracle has no choice.

So, a settlement might be in the interest of the larger community, but I'm not sure either party would likely see it in their own private interest.
I'd agree. On a side note, took me about ten seconds of googling to find HTML/Javascript that reliably crashes firefox (but does not crash IE8). I expect Chrome would have similar cases where there could be something that causes crashes (at least, there are bug reports asserting this).

(FYI here's some HTML/JS for the Firefox bug... Resizing the browser caused the issue to manifest in Win7 with FF 13.0.1:)

<!DOCTYPE html PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD XHTML 1.0 Strict//EN" "http://www.w3.org/TR/xhtml1/DTD/xhtml1-strict.dtd>;

<html xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml>;

<head>

<title>Test</title>

<script type="text/javascript">
window.onresize = function () {
alert("gg");
};
</script>

</head>

<body>

&nbsp;

</body>

</html>

(edited to acknowledge that this is a JS bug). And for the downvotes, at least provide a reason and/or a discussion.
Kids vary by quite a bit. Most kids learn their alphabet when they're about 4 and figure out written words when they're 5, but occasionally you get a very interested 2 year old who learns to read.

The variability between children is one of the reasons I really like the Montessori education philosophy. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Montessori_education
> Depth is hard to measure, but generally I find that clients will ask a question about a specific programming topic and start off basic. When the candidate gets that right, they go a little deeper with the second question and the candidate fails.

My experience bears this out. In one of the best interviews I had the interviewer essentially picked items off my CV and asked me more and more about them until I was forced to say "I don't know". This was supposedly deliberate (i.e. they wanted to see a) how much knowledge I actually had and b) what I would do at the limits of it). I came away from that interview with no idea of how well I did, but I got the job!

> Not being willing to work at all with PHP, Java or MS could be perceived as entitled if everyone else has to dive in on those from time to time.

In a tougher market I might be singing a different tune, but at the moment there's just so much work out there that I think the average developer can afford to be a little picky, or entitled as it were. Not saying it's right, it's just what it is.
Why Microsoft Surface will not be a hit?
New device to treat aneurysm used for the first time in US
Reminds me of this anecdote.

Your camera takes great pictures.

Thank you. Your mouth gives great compliments.
x=(true)?5:9

What is x?
Ah, I understand the map now. I'm bleary-eyed and missed that.

My grand vision was to do a comet-style app where you see the buses "move" towards your position/stop on a Google Map -- but I haven't been able to sit down and design that yet.

They've added a few more endpoints recently:

http://svc.metrotransit.org/NexTrip/help

Although, I am annoyed because:

NexTrip/{ROUTE}/{DIRECTION}/{STOP}

does not accept the same kind of IDs as the main endpoint 'NexTrip/{STOPID}' and also there are not valid {STOP} ids for every stop on a route.
This raises a great point, is it OK to clone a bad game and make it fun? I would argue that the mechanics that make a game fun are more important than the idea so copying the 'fun' parts is probably worse than just copying the idea. It's also more obvious that your making a significant change.

Edit: The article suggests that angry birds differs because of the mechanics of a slingshot being more inviting. However an arbitrary score to advance vs. # of projectiles and targets killed makes is IMO a more important advance even if it seems trivial it makes a vary different game.
Announcing BubbleConf 2012 Amsterdam
Painting requires parental supervision, set up, clean up, you can't undo, etc.

Of course painting is great, but it is not a binary choice.
Apple patents anti-surveillance technology that clones your identity online
And there I was, thinking that HN is above using "M$".

Do Apple and Google not also have a "treasure chest of influence"?
Hunt still remembers her first impressions of CitiMortgage’s O’Fallon headquarters, a complex of three concrete-and-glass buildings surrounded by manicured lawns and vast parking lots. Inside are endless rows of cubicles where 3,800 employees trade e-mails and conduct conference calls. Hunt says at first she felt like a mouse in a maze.

Accountability is a tough thing to manage when companies get to this stage. The larger the institution, the less accountable every individual within that institution tends to act. Organizational architecture pushes the risk downstream while pulling the reward upstream.

Workers had a powerful incentive to push mortgages through the process even if flaws were found: compensation. The pay of CitiMortgage employees all the way up to the division’s chief executive officer depended on a high percentage of approved loans, the government’s complaint says.

How does this organizational structure differ from the pyramid scheme, or MLM? With scrutiny, it really doesn't. This organizational structure is what has kept the Realtor-Broker model perpetuating for as long as it has: risk essentially becomes decoupled from the reward for Brokers; they can push their Realtors to pursue risky prospects because they get a cut every time. Furthermore, when Realtors collude with their Brokers, they have collective incentive to both negotiate prices upward and take as large of a cut as possible of that inflated amount. Missing from the equation is a system of checks and balances.

CitiMortgage mortgage brokers' compensation being tied to volume means that turnover in the housing market is something they aim(ed) for. There is something seriously wrong with this model.

The fact that nobody in the NAR or mortgage industry is being held accountable is puzzling.
I don't know if this has already been mentioned, but they didn't fully cook the burger. They just browned the sides for the photos, which gives it a much fuller look. Sure they may use the same ingredients, but the burger in the photo shoot will surely make you sick.
In IE 9.0.8112 (Win 2008R2) the tab is kinda stuck but the rest of the tabs work fine
I learned to type at around 4 by writing letters on a type writer and asking my parents how to spell word by word until I remembered them. I must have driven them crazy, especially as this was a noise mechanical typewriter...

I then learned BASIC on a VIC-20 at 5 by copying my dad and experimenting (at one point I spent an afternoon after I learned about POKE, POKE'ing through large chunks of memory and being delighted every time I managed to provoke weird sounds or visuals).

Many developers I've known have similar stories.

Looking at my own son (3 now) I absolutely think starting at the command line makes learning some basics like that fairly reasonable to achieve for most 4-5 year olds at least. A mouse is hard - it requires a lot of coordination. Touch interfaces works, but limit how far you can easily go in some directions (though they work great for others).
I understand and I feel that its such a pity really, as it should be a level playing field
We Had No Idea
I'm no photographer, but enjoyed these stunning photos nevertheless and shared this link with some friends.

One thing I noticed though (and as you posted it on HN, I think it's not nitpicking for pointing it out): why are you hijacking mouse clicks?! I really, really hate it when I command-click (open in a new tab) on a link, and the site decides that, no, you really should view the content in the same tab...
A lot of people think we should get rid of software patents entirely. I'm curious to get peoples' feedback on this:

I spent years working for a wireless startup. Our innovation was in the domain of software, but our product was not software--software just drove the product (military radios). The algorithms took years and millions of dollars of research to derive, and we patented them.

I think that business model is valuable, and it's extremely common. The companies that manufacture radios, telephones, networking equipment, etc, don't necessarily have the agility to come up with innovative software, and the small firms that can come up with innovative software don't have the manufacturing capability to go into the end-user product market. Software patents allow them to focus on their core competencies, then engage in mutually beneficial transactions with the assurance that the legal system will keep them from getting ripped off.

So my question is: how would businesses like the above work without software patents?
At 3, Jacob knew his alphabet and could find keys on the keyboard. He learned enough to remember, by rote or otherwise, that "worm" launched the worm game and "sl" launched steam locomotives, sometimes using a cheat sheet for help. He could not read or comprehend responses very well. (He derived a LOT of enjoyment from typing nonsense commands, then having me read the error messages that started with BASH)

At 5, he reads well. He is not good at spelling - one reason I give him a short cheat sheet - but he can make out a lot of what's going on. Not everything, of course.

We didn't start them on computers from the cradle. We read books to them a lot, and play games involving numbers and words. Jacob loves Dr. Seuss books and word games.

But lest anyone think we're some sort of tiger parents, we also open the front door and let them go play outside, maybe sending some sidewalk chalk with them if they want it.

I got a TRS-80 at about 5. It had only a CLI (BASIC-based). That was a huge incentive for me to learn to read. Nobody else in the house knew about computers then either, so unless I wanted to wait for my dad to get home from work, it was me and the manual.
Well, granted there is not enough women talking, but I don't want to hear about women talking about women in tech. I want to hear different the different perspectives of people in tech talking about whatever which could very well be a female perspective.
The jury made no decision on fair use, and the judge declared a mistrial on that portion of the case. His subsequent ruling moots the whole issue (no copyright, no infringement) --- but if that ruling were reversed, there would be a new trial on at least fair use. And IIRC, Google has indicated that they'd want a new trial on all copyright matters at that point.
Can confirm this!
I agree, I think it is positive to have good role models for everyone to aspire to.
I would liken it more to a kid who is learning to drive and has a dad who is a mechanic, so instead of getting a brand new car with a SatNav , power steering and heated seats they restore a classic together and the kid learns to drive that.

Not a perfect analogy but the point I am making is that I don't think there's anything at all wrong with parents teaching their kids what might be considered "unusual" skills.
Best JavaScript / HTML5 game engine?
What would you recommend?
Yardsale App Lets You Sell Your Stuff and Meet Your Neighbors Too
That's incorrect.

If your TV crashed would you blame the TV program you were watching at the time?

People know the difference between software and content. Content should never be able to crash software.
The C64 was great for that too, in a different way. You could do absolutely anything, mess it up in any way - peek and poke random system stuff - and you were one reset away from it being fine again.
It's hard, but doable.
JSConf US 2012 - Dan Ingalls: The Lively Kernel
Check out Rumgr.com
Shoot Me If I Ever Say These Things To A Startup Team
Nice work! It sure do got a purty mouth.
Bingo! Give this man a cookie. It's bullshit that these guys perpetrated outright fraud like this, and - at the end - nobody was really punished, even though they basically admitted they were guilty.

This shit is what gives capitalism a bad name... I'm as much a proud anarcho-capitalist, Ayn Rand reading, Ludwig von Mises quoting, Gary Johnson supporting libertarian as the next guy, and it pains me to get beat up for believing in capitalism because of these crooks at Citi and BoA, when nobody is being punished for their fraud. Capitalism does not inherently entail accepting fraud like this, but every time these asshats get away with this kind of behavior, it reinforces all the negative images that people have about capitalism.

If we're going to accept the idea that government (or something like government) is to protect property rights and enforce a "rule of law" that protects against this kind of fraud, then our government needs to step the %$!# up and prosecute some of these assholes.
I agree the "loser pays" provision is ridiculous, for the same reason "loser pays" provisions are always ridiculous. It totally chills small firms from taking on large firms who are ripping them off.
Van Wilder picks up his ball and heads home.
I don't think he did. It started with a built in community, the people in the YC program. In fact at first it was Startup News not HN.
I either use a PCL from the start, or I've taken existing code and moved it into the pCL (there are a few tricks to get around due to pieces missing from the various libraries, since they are an overlapping subset).

So if you have existing .net code, I'd try to plug it into the PCL and see which namespaces, etc. are missing then work backwards from there - even if you can only get some of your code, it's a better start than copy/pasting everything IMO.
That's the way I've always understood it. If he had wanted an alternative to Windows then it stands to reason it would look and operate more like Windows. Plus it would probably have been named something like Lindows, which someone eventually did.
Learn All About the Amazon Simple Workflow Service (Videos)
I agree with you in that content should never be able to crash software.

I disagree with you TV example, however. If the same TV show repeatedly crashed one of the most popular TV models, consumers would blame the show.
It seems that getting a programming job that way only works if you know someone at the company, or the company is small. Unfortunately, in my experience with both sides of the process, you won't even be considered for a job at a big tech company without the right degree--your application doesn't make it through their first filter.
This is so depressing. All these nerd dads are trying to break some kind of record by saying "look my kid can do this at age X". Please consult development psychologist before you stuff your toddler's brain with such garbage. They need to play with physical objects, music, colors, food. go out and have fun. There is plenty of time to learn shell.
"Completely aside: is there any good advice for men who want to further the role of women in tech..."

As a successful woman in tech, I would say the following:

--Note that women tend to underplay their accomplishments and judge themselves more harshly (I've also seen men who fit into this pattern, but it's more common with women.) So when a woman who fits this pattern says "I'm decent at x", it may be the same as a man saying "I'm great at x."

--Become a champion for the women in your life who deserve more recognition. Encourage them to take more leadership roles, jump at more speaking gigs when presented with the opportunity, etc. Women will often tend to think "I'm not ready for that yet" while a man with similar experience will say "Yeah, let's go for it!"

--Help the youngest girls in your life develop more self-confidence. My cousin, a brilliantly smart teenager, kept telling me, "I'm terrible at math." I encouraged her to focus on the positive (she was getting great grades in her math classes, and understood the problem set) and to think more positively about her abilities.

This lack of self-confidence is ingrained from an early age in many women and affects us throughout life in many cases. Encouraging girls to think more empowering thoughts and to have more confidence may be the best thing you can do to give them a better chance for success.
Applying “Inbox Zero” to your GIT Workflow
While close, it's a bit different since JS is needed to crash the browser. The interesting thing about the IE bug is that no JS is required.
His theory was that innovation strategy was more than just coming up with the right product, you had to make sure all the pieces were in place in order to get adoption (customers, suppliers, competitors, etc). His analysis of why the Newton failed, but the iPad succeed is very well supported. As is his work on why electronic medical records have failed to be adopted despite the obvious advantages to the paper system

It's a complex enough of a theory that I can't do it justice in a HN post.

Do a google search for "Ron Adner". I'm sure he has some stuff on the web. He just published a new book as well.
Sure, you can create "art" on the iPad, but I don't think that's what he was referring to.
100% correct in my experience.
Removing the TR's produces the same results. Change div to p still results in the crash, but removing that level entirely doesn't.
Absolutely agreed. The issue now isn't that the major players aren't in WP, but it's that their apps are absolutely terrible, and obviously barely tested. The Rdio app didn't even play music for months, and the Spotify app is glitchy as hell. So the "100,000 apps" boast is a little hollow.
Has Startup Juliet Marine Built the World's First Supercavitating Ship?
> I helped him them in as root for the very first time.

Aww, this is so adorable :-)
Rublon: log in to popular websites by scanning QR codes
I'll admit that I was mainly reminescing about hardware from the previous decade when writing that. But the general point of "windows officially, linux maybe" remains.
The iPad, to me, represents everything that is wrong with raising children.

First of all, I should say that computers are a small part of my boys' life. We live on a farm. They get lots and lots of time to explore outdoors, climb in trees, and all that good stuff that so few kids get these days. That is really more important to me.

You are probably right that they would also be delighted at an iPad. But what would that achieve? A simulation of things they could do with paper, out the front door? Reinforce the message that cool things are expensive and welded shut?

Research shows, and I firmly believe, that children need unstructured play. They need to be able to pretend, to create, to examine, to fail cheaply. Lots of toys and gadgets don't foster this. Don't get me wrong; our boys have plenty of toys, but we try hard to keep it from being so vast an amount like so many people have. When we travel, we don't bring a lot of toys. Walking in downtown Portland, for instance, they might find some leaves and make a game out of throwing them in the air while we walk.

We built this computer from spare parts. They were active participants in that. When it breaks, we will take it apart together and look at it. Maybe we will open it up other times just to see what it's like. This machine was free; it was built from old parts in my basement that I had discarded.

I vehemently disagree that more cost == better experience for children.

Two other things they've loved that were also free to me: an adding machine about to be thrown out (they love printing "cards" with it), and a manual typewriter (think of all the mechanical discovery awaiting one of those.)

Outdoors, they invent all sorts of games. They both have picked out trees on our yard that are "trains", designating branches as various controls and sometimes inviting me to ride on their train.
IPhone Weather App UI PSD Freebie
Twitter Completely Down
Launching a new site? Here's an SEO checklist
Very cool. It reminds me a bit of 'Near' for the PS Vita. Get out and socialize people!
It does not crash the IE build that came with the RC of windows 8. So probably all the comments and the page should use a past tense?
Can we get a version of this story with a less editorialistic headline?

This is clearly a "fits the narrative" type headline, hardy individual versus big bad bank; and I don't trust stories when they fit popular narratives.

Tell me the facts of the case, Bloomberg, I'll make up my own mind how I want to feel about it.