skysight-inc/HackerNews huggingface dataset:
The internet was buzzing the last few days because Facebook added a mobile feature to connect to people nearby:
http://techcrunch.com/2012/06/24/friendshake-facebooks-new-m...

Since then they have taken the app offline:
http://www.wired.com/gadgetlab/2012/06/facebook-quietly-rele...

In the mean time, a company called FriendThem announced they are contemplating legal action against Facebook because they feel their idea was stolen:
http://venturebeat.com/2012/06/25/friendthem-sues-facebook-c...

Which made me think this idea is too simple to sue each other over. I wrote a clone in about half a day yesterday (the link above). For those interested in the technology, it's made with Python, Bottle.py, Gevent, MongoDB, CoffeeScript and JQuery Mobile. Code is here:
https://github.com/allards/connectnearby

The app would be much more useful if you could connect on Linkedin, Twitter or with a vcard as well. NFC would be perfect for this. What do you think?
Would be more useful if prolifi has an extension. That way, when I exceed 160 chars on twitter, I am reminded that I can post the blurp through prolifi instead and have the link posted to twitter automatically. Similar to how Facebook implemented their Notes concept, which never made sense in the Facebook context.
I'm also considering doing a review series:
I'll go more in depth with sites that implement some of my modifications. I'll require the sites I do this with to provide analytics for me so I can help more functionally.

For the current reviews, I think I've decided on an outline:

General:
- HOW I SEE THE PRODUCT VISION
- PRODUCT/UX GOALS: Customer type
- DESIGN CHOICES

---

STRIPPING: things that need to be removed + why
- Elements that take away from the goal

SMALL CHANGES: under 20 hours of work
- HTML/CSS changes
- Image aliasing + fixes
- Basic JS
- Small structural (moving partials, page order)

MEDIUM CHANGES: under 10 days of work
- Adding fancy stuff (unlimited scroll, timed pop ups etc.)
- Page structure

LARGE CHANGES + ADD ONS: Big picture stuff
- Large feature improvements/modifications
- Future goals

---

Let me know if there is a preferred method to UX feedback. I plan to spend no more than an 1.5 hours to 2 hours on each startup review
Couldn't you use a cookie and map, rather than URLs? Sounds like users could end up on different rails back ends unintentionally based on what URL they use, with your method...

http://serverfault.com/questions/268633/controlling-nginx-pr...
The Dutch certainly have a reputation for being pragmatic and sensible.
Nobody Needs FarmVille 2, Zynga
Do your guests get keys to come and go as they please?
Hah, that's actually a thing (steganography). That full stop is actually a microdot.
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This idea of a not forcing users to create accounts to use your product is pretty much the default these days, but five years ago I'd never seen it done.

During the first day of having Twiddla exposed to the world, I added a no-signup option as an afterthought and watched traffic our demo usage simply explode. Here's the writeup:

http://www.twiddla.com/blog/2007/04/1000-signups-on-day-one....

So the short answer is yes. This same lesson has been learned over and over again by hundreds of companies since then. At this point, it's not worth even giving thought to. Do it if you can.
It took me 6 pages to go to the download link...
You're right, increasing engagement is a goal here. Regarding your feedback, under the Wish List button is the location, map, and 'Book it' link. All three take you to the listing. Keep the feedback coming.
Spent a couple of hours this morining building dream home. Tried to upload but its just hanging (Chrome on OSX). Anyone else found this???
We've done this before, but by adding an additional load-balancer that forwards requests to a different port (e.g. 81 instead of 80) depending on the subdomain that was accessed. The request is processed by nginx, which has separate server blocks and associated upstreams for processing requests that come in over the configured ports. The only application logic that was necessary to accommodate the changes was a check to determine if the user should be part of the beta, and redirect them to the appropriate subodmain if necessary.

While it's not as clean as having the check done in nginx itself via Lua script + Redis, it's relatively low friction. That said, the Lua script embedded in the nginx config is very slick, and I had been contemplating writing something similar using the nginx memcache module. Nice work.
I have a feeling most grown men there do not have families.
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I strongly disagree. The men that I know that successfully use OKCupid do not have just one girlfriend.
Great, thanks. I guess looking back at my own experience with 'average users' my mom will start to yell at the computer if Facebook or some other website won't show up fairly quickly. And when it comes to AirBnB I suppose that most users of the service aren't 'average users', but more savvy crowds.
Ask HN: What is some great fiction you've read?
Read Labyrinths by Borges, and found it to be fantastic, the kind of stuff that leaves you a different person. So, HN, any good fiction you've read of late that I may have missed?
This is a very cool trick in Facebook :) If you put @[[userid]], it will be replaced with the profile pic of that userid! Now that people know this, there are a bunch of profiles which only exist to be convenient as emoticons. http://www.digitspark.com/2011/12/how-to-use-anyones-face-as...
Your analogy makes no sense. Netflix isn't 'not serving "blacks"': Def people are allowed to use Netflix all the same as other people, but as they can't hear what is said their experience is arguably worse than other peoples, but that is not Netflix's fault.
> Special parking spots easily cost 1% more than regular parking spots because of the markings on ground and the metal signage.

Eh, I don't know that it would even be 1% more - for a construction project most of the cost comes from the mobilization of equipment and prep work. For the construction of a parking lot, you have excavation, installation of drainage, installaction of subgrade, paving, curbing, signage, and line painting, all of which take a week of more for a decent sized lot. When it comes time to lay out the HPV sport, the line-spraying and post-hole digging equipment is already there, it's just applied differently. I'd be shocked if it were even a 1% difference.

In any event, given that the contingency on construction projects is typically 5% to 10%, so even 1% is insignificant. But we're in the weeds here ;)
I don't think it is unwarranted, because some of us have had friends that were hit by drive-by lawsuits under the ADA in the real world.

So, I upload videos to my site, do I have to close caption them? Do I have to close caption a stream I do from my iPhone? It would seem if my site has ads, it would count as commercial and be subject to these rules.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_v._Microsoft

If Apple keeps waging patent war it is going to find itself in this position.
As I explained in the post, that's the intended behaviour.

We want to allow our users to enable beta version for all visitors to their Mixlr page, not just for themselves.

But a cookie approach would be easy too - see my other comment for a simple example.
That I find more believable ...
Oh, ok, got it. Not a twitter app dev. You are forgiven ;-) - registered.
I'd guess they were temp. workers from how it sounds with bonus based on performance and a few other bits from the first post, but even if they're temps you'd still have to begin a firing process unless you can say 'hey, no work left'. But then shifting temps elsewhere is unlikely so who knows, I'd lean towards potential exaggeration.
Not only that, calling it "107,000 ft^2" amounts to inventing significant digits.
I suppose I didn't make it clear enough in my post, but the practice over the year has led to a significant increase in well-being for me. Emotions, though they may be felt more strongly, also pass more quickly. Instead of a unsustainable happiness or Euphoria, it's more like a pervading sense of peace. I don't think I could have kept it up if this wasn't the case!
> Sources

A Reuters wire story.
They have all the property, the password will be encoded in the software. Writing it down for them is work and he was no longer working for them.
I don't think that's really fair, considering they even had a _moratorium_ on language changes in place for two years: http://www.python.org/dev/peps/pep-3003/

And as for the standard lib, a lot of the additions e.g. in 3.3 is simply stuff that's been around and proven for years: virtualenv, mock ...

I mean, I respect that you feel that way, but I just don't see the same sort of cause for concern I guess.
Once you are used to an environment where you can do everything with no mouse, it feels very clunky and inefficient when you are in an IDE and you need to constantly switch between typing and using the mouse.

If you had to stand up and sit down in order to open a file menu you would think that was silly, but could make the same argument for it that you did for the mouse.
Posting @[100:0] results in the following:

Andy Brunner
Sounds sort of like an elevator pitch, but more directed towards you than the startup. I guess that's what we expect, focusing on the people behind the startup instead of a mix of both.

But where's your execution? Talking the talk is great, but showing people what you've done is better. Less vague, more concrete. In fact, this is entirely about why we should bet on you, not your company.

I'm sure you can sell this idea (whatever it may be) to someone and get some investments, but I figure HN is a bit more sophisticated than that. Do tell, why do you deserve this funding over someone else who has products to show for themselves?

It doesn't help that you don't have any karma here. You just popped out of the blue today, eh. Or a throwaway, I don't know. I know I don't have karma either, but I'm not trying to sell.

I'm just passing by.
Yes that works too as I mentioned in the first couple of paragraphs of the post.

However having a beta.mixlr.com domain a) introduces a lot of friction and seriously reduces the ease with which you can test features b) may alter the perception or expectations of a visitor, making testing less valid.

We've got a lot of users and we want to make the roll-out process completely transparent and inclusive.

Hence this solution.
At the same time, that's what makes me wonder if it is legitimate or just stock photography. I know that it isn't, but from a first-timer's perspective, it almost seems "too good to be true."
I'm getting peoples names instead of pictures.
The Problem With Having An Unrealistic Valuation
I haven't done any large projects in Sublime Text but it's definitely my go-to editor now for looking over code in any language or putting together scripts and short bits of code. It has a ton of cool keyboard shortcuts and syntax hi-lighting for a couple dozen languages. I would definitely recommend playing around with it and seeing how you like it.

My only complaint is that it didn't support SaSS hi-lighting so when I was learning web design I'd get funky half CSS hi-lighting.
I am willing to believe that the story was embellished a bit.

For instance, in Brazil I could say that I was "fired on the spot", even though in most cases the company is required to give notice, meaning I'd still be working in the company for a month.

Doesn't change the fact that I am effectively fired in this case.
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I'm unfamiliar with these questions… Inverse the scoring? So what, going to parties is good or bad? How is this relevant to determine if you're good at your job?
That's not true.

Let's verify what you said.

If you quote me on something you can't find a shred of evidence of, I'll see if I can tell you what it is.
Did you read the comment I replied to? My point is that "complaining to management" will never work, which is why we have laws and regulations.
So if I buy a safe secretly with the company credit card, and fill it with material I completed on company time, and they fire me, I'm not legally obligated to tell them the combination to the safe?
Try one bracket vs. double brackets?
As a backup strategy, the guy should have made a version of the program that is buggy and only gets 7x the regular production rate of the other workers. Then if company wants his code, they get the inefficient program and he gets hired to make it work 100%.

He can explain his bonuses as script + great manual work in case they wonder.
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JOB TITLE:- Sr. Java developer 
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> Perhaps I have a negative view of companies as well, but when he said he programmed it on company time, and wouldn't give up the password, I was surprised that the company didn't just sue him for not giving up company property.

> He told his boss, who fired him, but then the boss and manager asked for the password to the program. OP refused, called up the boss's boss, OP was brought in to talk, and given a new job as a software engineer.

He didn't refuse to give the password to the company, just to his scumbag ex-boss.
From the article:

'The most crucial ruling is where the court says that a website qualifies as a "place of public accommodation."'

The context of my comment was in regards to the general case of website accessibility falling under the scope of the ADA as a place of public accomodation, i.e. as web commerce replaces bricks and mortar stores, the nature of what constitutes a place of public accommodation will shift to keep up in order to protect the rights of persons with disabilities to participate in civic life just as the Uniform Business Code has been extended into these new places of business.
That's an issue for the first month or few, but then it goes intuitive.

When it sunk in for me, I found myself combining operations in new ways without thinking about it. The situations where I really have to think about what I'm doing are usually when it's something weird like encodings or huge blocks of strangely formatted daily-wtf-worthy legacy code.

Sublime Text certainly has a lower upfront commitment cost to productivity, though. I still pop it open occasionally just because Ctrl-D is amazing.
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I guess I'll just echo what everyone is saying. I don't think many will take Phil's word for the character of his business partner. He's clearly an unreliable narrator.

Their conflict is somewhat outside the scope of the movie. I don't think that it's so important that they get the partner's side, it's about Phil, just the way he is.
I'm really interested in this, but to be honest the drama from the last product makes me hesitant if I can trust the company. I'll probably wait until they for sure have them in stock.
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She. Did you really read the article and not notice it was written by a woman? On a blog titled "Elaine Wherry"?
Lovely. We do something very similar in front of EC2 clusters with http://openresty.org/
It seems that we are over-hyping the impact. A quote from one of the comments on the article page:
"In summary, the ADA has an "undue hardship" clause. This clause basically states that a private business does not have to provide an accommodation if it would present an undue hardship for the business.
There are actually several examples that I can think of IRL, because my girlfriend uses a wheelchair. How many small businesses do you enter that do not have either (A) automatic doors or (B) a handicap door? I'd venture a guess at least few, more or less, depending on where you live. It probably seems relatively minor if you aren't using a wheelchair, but I challenge you to think of how you would get into the all the places of business you enter for a day or two and it may become easier. These small businesses, because they do not have the financial ability to make ADA compliant changes to their buildings, are exempt from compliance.
"

So it seems that small businesses and start ups are not forced to comply unless they become sufficiently big enough such that they cannot assert as under "undue hahrdship" clause.
correction: iPhone 4GS is really just an iPhone 4S
Pretty much it. This is also a good illustration of the difference between the private and the public sector. In the private sector your boss would rather keep all his employees, but your boss's boss, or your boss's boss's boss, would rather cut costs and increase profit.

Start working for the government, though, and every level of management is keen on having as many people beneath them as possible, and there's no real desire at any level to reduce costs; the less efficient your department is the bigger your budget is and the more important you look.

Occasionally a politician will sweep through with an attempt to cut costs (they're the only ones who even pretend to care) -- the bureaucracy will respond by firing the most useful and publicly visible of their employees to ensure that service levels drop thus justifying their case for an increased budget later on.
[IANAL]

I believe that Youtube would be exempt from the Twenty-First Century Communications and Video Accessibility Act of 2010.

It's hard to imagine Google having it any other way without stories appearing on HN.

http://www.govtrack.us/congress/bills/111/hr3101
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Corporate People Photography
Reddit is a diverse place. And sturgeons law applies.

(I even found some thoughtful discussion on youtube recently.)
Make Something People Love: Lessons From a Startup Guy
Not to nitpick, but the spelling mistake in the email announcement doesn't exactly inspire confidence.
Would the kid's knowledge about how to operate the program (in this case, a password) be considered company property? I don't think many jurisdictions would consider an employee's knowledge the property of the company, unless it was a trade secret- and even then, he would only be restricted from telling others under certain circumstances- I don't think he would be required to spend his own time (he was fired) telling the company how to operate the program. Of course, I am not a lawyer...
If it stands, this ruling is going to be a huge mess for a few years... but I actually think it will turn out to be a good thing overall. (Measured in society's terms, not web developers.)

As others have pointed out: the point of the ADA is that the disabled are a tiny, tiny market, and the cost-benefit analysis done by a for-profit business is rarely going to result in any accommodation for them. It is explicitly a government mandate that these people be accommodated because society is a better place when people who have been disabled are not also woefully under-served.

(You can disagree with that last statement, I suppose -- it's a question of values. But I agree, in general.)

What I think needs to happen is an adjustment in the ADA. I'd love to see exceptions made for very small businesses (so startups aren't choked by the requirements) and for user-generated content. Netflix is an edge case: the content is not theirs to close-caption, but it's not "user-generated" either. I could see either requiring that they only show close-captioned material, or imposing more requirements on the production side of streaming video.

But I really don't see any reason that large, profitable web companies like Google, Facebook, or Amazon should be exempt. "It will cost money" or "Making screen-reader-friendly sites is boring" are not good excuses.
Here's the ruling:

http://www.scribd.com/doc/98367038/Galaxy-Tab-Injunction-Rul...

The injunction is being granted based on this patent:

http://www.google.com/patents/USD504889

It's a design patent granted in 2005 for an electronic device shaped like a rounded rectangle. But it cites several other patents for other devices shaped like rectangles. So is it the precise aspect ratio and thickness of their rectangle that makes it unique? But the Galaxy Tab is substantially thinner than the rectangle shown in this patent.
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I didn't add it to the short version, but in the second paragraph the op says:

I get a call from my bosses boss ....but I was hellbent on refusing to give out the password.

So he refused to give it to his boss, his manager, and his bosses boss (who in the end gave him the job).
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If your job was securing their stuff, which was before in piles on the grass outside the offices and they fire you for putting it in a safe instead, then probably not. You haven't stolen anything and they fired you for doing your job too well. All safes are openable and they opted for the hard way when they fired you. Would probably depend on the court though.
I have a similar story which I posted on HN before, here is the repost:

A fair number of years ago I worked a non tech office job for a few months. Basically a large portion of the job was checking though a spreadsheet looking at figures and checking them against a corresponding row in another part of the sheet. Assuming the figures matched you would copy the figures elsewhere in the sheet, append some characters to them and mark ones that were wrong in red. The data I think came from some legacy database.

There were a few more steps that I don't quite recall but basically they provided a list of instructions on how to do this part of the job and I immediately recognized that this was basically psuedocode, there was nothing "human" required at all. They expected a human error rate of around 1% with this and sheets were often checked twice.

A few days into the job I decided to try writing a Macro to do this job, so that night at home I wrote my macro and emailed it to myself. Next day I loaded it up, ran it and then checked the results by hand. I did this until I was satisfied that the error rate was 0.

Next few days I just started running my macro instead of working by hand, meaning I got about 3 hours work done in under a second and could spend the rest of the day doing other (marginally less monotonous) work.

Now in this office they tracked people's productivity levels as well as their error rate, so naturally I end up with obscene performance stats and no errors.

So the team manager of course asks me to explain myself and I show her the macro and offer to show her how to set it up on other computers and explain how well I tested it etc. The response I got surprised me somewhat.

"You are cheating your stats!" was what I was told. Of course I explained that it wouldn't be "unfair" if everyone had the software. Now at the end of every month they had some (cheap) prize for the person with the highest productivity and lowest error rate and since other tasks were not so easily "scored" the spreadsheet task was a big part of the deal.

No matter how I tried to explain it was like hitting a brick wall, because in her eyes I was "cheating". They had been doing this monotonous work for so long and were so used to it that wasting probably hundreds of man months was preferable to questioning if there might be a better way.

Of course I offered to forfeit any "prize" I might win (despite potentially saving them thousands of pounds), but no we type figures and then somebody wins a prize at the end dammit!
Personalization does not have to be “Creepy”
Microsoft analyzes over a million PC failures, results shatter enthusiast myths