skysight-inc/HackerNews huggingface dataset:
Sparrow is the shit
> So teach yourself not to make the mistakes because the next person in behind you working on your code might not know what you mean.

For the nth time, I am not talking about "monkeys banging on keyboard" grammar.

> As for periods outside of parentheses or not, that's syntax, not grammar

Syntax is not grammar?

It isn't that hard to fact-check before confidently correcting someone.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Syntax

> Good grammar is an indication that the person wielding the language at least takes care over what they're doing.

Good grammar is an indication of good grammar, and that's that. If you believe it's otherwise, well, your believes aren't fact. Please provide citations.
Sparrow the third party Mac/iOS email client is now owned by Google
It damaged Ruby's popularity? You feel Ruby hasn't been popular enough the past few years?
Depends on what your goals are. If I wanted to write a good essay, I certainly wouldn't slavishly obey the rules.

If I want to get an A, obeying the rules was absolutely perfect and worked every time. If I also managed a good essay at the same time, that was a bonus.

School was never about writing good essays. It was about learning the rules and proving you could follow them.
So... how about open-sourcing Sparrow? Seems like that would solve a big part of the problem, no? Wonder if Google would let that happen.
I don't think Sparrow ever really promised push… http://www.sprw.me/push.php
The best feedback for a first time entrepreneur
> After all, part of the reason to learn Lisp or Haskell is to make you better at Blub, right?

What's forcing you to stay in Blub to begin with? There's great same-platform alternatives to everything except for Javascript.
It's easy to call people cowards when you're not in their situation and likely never will be. I'd like to see what you would do if you actually made that kind of money.
Here is what I believe to be a more appropriate introduction to "study tech" http://www.cs.cmu.edu/~dst/StudyTech/
Emotionally, it would be great to see a return to manned space exploration, but the intellectual side of me has to ask 1) why return to the moon? and 2) how practical is it to send humans when robots can achieve 80% of the objectives at 20% of the cost, and so much of what is worth visiting is out of reach until we figure out how to dramatically increase the speed of space travel?

Note that the 80% and 20% are sheer rhetorical fabrications.
>> but it seems to me that the shortcomings of the language can't be justified by tradeoffs because there were no benefits gained by the downsides that are in PHP

You are wrong. There are a lot of justifications for the tradeoffs, and if you want to know what they are, just ask real developers who wrote the code or maintain it. Somehow this is very rarely done, people just assume because they saw a couple of pages of bad PHP code, they know everything about the language now and can tell if certain tradeoffs were justified or not. PHP is simple, but it's not that simple.

>> debatable facts ("it's easy!")

Calling the fact "debatable" in order to make a proven fact seem dubious may be effective at first, but only if the readers do not have a habit to think about what they read. I think most of the people here do have this habit. So it would be nice to respect the audience and if you mean to dispute known facts - fine, dispute them. By using proof and argument, not just by attaching an epithet to them.

>> That articles like this one keep coming up is a sign that people (mainly PHP defenders) can't just admit their language has downsides like everyone else's

Sorry, this is baloney. Everybody admits that. What PHP defenders would not admit is exactly what you are saying above - that PHP is unique among languages not in having downsides, but in all of these downsides having no justifications at all. What they don't admit is that anybody who sees that is stupid (or, as you prefer to say, "lacking in professionalism") just because they see more than you see. That's just nonsense and there's absolutely no reason to "admit" it.
When you're writing about subjectives, the "I think" is always implied: why state it explicitly?
Google AdSense Advertisements For Organic Visitors Hack
As mentioned in the other reply, it's not about humiliation; succeeding in the overt task of writing badly doesn't directly imply failure in the task of writing well. In fact, I would expect some of the brightest students -- especially the ones who are already adept in gaming the essay-writing system -- to be ranked highly if previous academic courses implicitly rewarded fluff. Students with a simple, clear writing style, on the other hand, may find writing intentionally overwrought language to be a challenge; because past assignments with artificial word or page counts may have punished them for their clarity (as the article suggests), they may find it refreshing to score low. Getting the incentives framed properly would be crucial but far from impossible.
I wouldn't say that's unrelated but it's definitely true. I think that if more 'normal' people cared about security we would come up with a convenient and secure system already. For example, would two factor be such a big deal if everyone had an authenticator already? Probably not.
> Yeah we got screwed.

If the current version basically does the job that it's supposed to, then how did you get screwed? It's not like you spent hundreds of dollars on the app. The Mac version is only $10 for crying out loud.
We used MATLAB. We organized the training data into a database (referred to as the "knowledge base") which was implemented in MYSQL with a web-based UI implemented in PHP. The various other scripts in shell and Perl were used to run the model on our Linux cluster.
Most rewrites described in that article were also intended to be substantial revisions rather than a functionally identical version with "new" code.
De facto standards are de facto standards not because somebody decided them to be. It's because people choose it. So discussing what people "should" choose is pointless - they choose what they like, not what somebody thinks they "should".
I love his 'all writing is political' idea. On many occasions have I asked myself "Why am I writing this?" and surprised myself with my answer.
A Text is a Text is a Text
Yeah, calvinlough and antr mentioned that. Not actually all that worried.

Although, I'm not a huge fan of the lack of attention that these products will be getting because of the creators being sucked into big companies.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Genetic_algorithm
this last graphic in this blog post from the always interesting asymco examines this nicely:

http://www.asymco.com/2012/07/04/the-building-and-dismantlin...

quite a stunning change, totally left field. neat.
The sentence is a little unclear, but it is a little clearer if you consider things from the perspective of an organized attacker who controls some number of parties in the transaction. Even if the attacker messes around with the addresses of his keys, he doesn't learn anything about the addresses of the other participants: he can control the order of their keys relative to his, but not the relative order of keys among themselves.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=t5i7JDNACtI
Surely, Kapersky can't be bigger than Microsoft and other companies mentioned in the article? If they can fight it out, why can't the big guys fight it out? If only the big guys took a stance, and fight these trolls, it'll be nice.
> Absolutely you do not have to subject yourself to his whims. You would be free to walk out the door if you found the grammar test offensive, or the push-ups test, or the rope-skipping test.

> You do not deserve respect. Ever. You must always earn it.

There are multiple types of respect. "One human being to another" is the basic type. Everyone deserves that. Another is earned. And the last one is context dependent.

If I am coming in for a programming job, there are expectations and norms. I come in and you ask me to unclog the toilet since you read in some blog about some CEO doing it or it represents loyalty or commitment or whatever the fuck, I am free to walk out and I will walk out. But that doesn't excuse the fact that you didn't warrant me the respect I deserved.
I'd be willing to forgo that ability in order to reduce the necessary permissions.

As as aside, is there any way for users to verify or view what specific data an extension actually accessed? (I'm assuming not.)
Instapaper also offers a subscription plan http://www.instapaper.com/faq

If I remember correctly it adds search and the ability to use the full API by 3rd party clients.
Because of the honeypot effect. There is not much incentive for a hacker to hack an individual machine. he/she is better off targeting efforts towards sites like Dropbox. We saw the skydrive privacy breach yesterday. Before that we saw yahoo leak: http://www.readwriteweb.com/archives/yahoos-450-000-account-....

For instance, my employer IBM banned the use of dropbox in the company.
Depending on your location and level of teaching, how did your union feel about that (if relevant)? Every time we try to reward our best teachers, it gets blocked because it's not "fair" to those who didn't excel. Go figure.
Well, not so much billing address but at least the zip code.
This doesn't work. If you know how many coins an output address is waiting to receive, all you need to do is look at which input address is submitting that many coins, and you have a matching.
Dude: FUCK YOU

If the Lisp people were smart enough to pander their shit properly, things wouldn't be so damn bad.

Honestly, I'm up for people claiming it cures cancer or whatever. We need competition in languages. We need people to ask questions. But most of all, we need people to be happy with change. If you aren't willing to change your tools, you are going to live a limited and boring life.
The model is "M. genitalium" in the sense that it attempts to predict M. genitalium's phenotype from its genotype. In order to build the model we needed to use data from many additional organisms. In that sense, the model represents a hybrid of all of these organisms.
If that works in the long run, it's great for the shareholders.
Starting Now: Google Hangout w/ Brad Feld on the Broken Patent System
Instapaper isn't entirely without other revenue. The web interface displays ads, and he offers a $1/month subscription that improves some features. (I pay for it so that I can send larger compilations to my Kindle.)

http://www.instapaper.com/subscription
Considering the current numbering scheme, 0.9 will be the unstable version of 1.0. Which means 0.9 should give us a very good idea of the final backwards compatible API (hopefully)
Shouldn't that banner just be implied? Yes, company X is open to investments or being acquired if the right offer comes along. This should not be a surprise to anyone.

Should we require employees to wear a sign to work everyday saying that they will leave their job for a better one if the right offer comes along?
I just tried his same test on my 7 with the same game and the same multitouch tester app and I was unable to replicate the bug. Must be a manufacturing issue that affects only some devices.
I agree that we can talk about the median CEO, because that just requires ordering. But how would you talk about a 10x CEO? That needs multiplication on CEOs, which is much harder to define in a way that makes sense.
All of the supplementary material is available at http://simtk.org/home/wholecell. http://wholecell.stanford.edu provides a search interface to all of the training data.
In Sparrow's case, though, one has to say that it looks as if they had a sustainable business. After all, they were always in the top 30 of the App Stores. That should equivalent to a lot of money.
If they do a search function that is exactly the opposite of Reddit, then I will go back to Digg.
"plus my unfamiliarity with the underlying technology, makes it tough for me to put together a complete picture of how this litigation actually unfolded."

If you can't get the big picture, what chance does a lay jury have?

Isn't it time the US moved to a specialised patent court, as is found in many other jurisdictions?
Is this Retina? Display Density + Viewing Distance Calculator
It is not a matter of effort, but of creating false expectations. If you use affirmations, you are creating a positive statement of something that doesn't exist. For example, to combat the idea of "I am a loser", you create an affirmative statement "I am a winner".

The problem, however, is that neither of these statements are true. You are not a loser neither a winner a priori. All you can do is to improve your chances of being successful, since you cannot really control the results.
Free start up idea, everyone: super-convenient 2-factor auth.
All of the source code is available at http://simtk.org/home/wholecell. http://wholecell.stanford.edu provides a searchable interface to our training set database.
>It lacked the fluidity and responsiveness you have with native apps.

Having only messed around with phonegap a little recently, I wasn't sure if this was a real issue or something I was doing wrong. Is the lack of responsiveness you describe a noticeable delay any time you try to interact with the app in any way? I made a trivial app that just has two pages, and switches between them when you click a button, and it was obviously, noticeably slow to react. Is that "normal" phonegap performance? I guess I am just hoping I did something wrong, because I don't see how anyone could possibly use phonegap if it really is that slow all the time.
Other than being 2-3x more expensive than costco photo and having considerably less printing options, how is this different to simply uploading to costco/adorama etc? Costco doesn't have a mobile app (as far as I know) but you can mail in photos and then use the website to make the print order.

Costco 13c 4x6 on fuji crystal archive paper, picplum 50c
Costco $1.49 8x10, picplum $4

I don't get the advantage.

On the website it shows Polaroids, which is a little disingenuous since picplum doesn't even (it appears) support printing square photos. I couldn't actually find much information at all, like if they have profile downloads like Costco does, or how they do color matching, or even if they offer more than lustre paper.

I make prints of everything I like, either wet prints for b&w or color usually on matte from Adorama (who are also less expensive than PicPlum.)
>> this feels like a big middle finger to the customers who have been supporting them.

During the first bubble, Oracle told one of my customers that they should buy their license for $300K before prices went up. A week after they bought, the price dropped $100K. Now that's getting a big middle finger.

To make this claim about software that costs less than $10 and pays itself off in less than a week? Well that's just being dramatic.
They do, subtly. It's only major overhauls that are rare. However, I think they'll be working on mobile apps a fair bit and the subtleties of interaction, since Google+ has grown in leaps and bounds through major design overhauls (both the new app and web interface are very good looking and good to use) and flashy ad campaigns. I guess they're trying to pre-empt the effect the relatively good-looking Facebook had on disgruntled MySpace users jumping ship from over-customised profiles.
The Surprising Connection Between Card-Shuffling and the Higgs Boson
The first comment on the site when I saw it earlier today was "run reddit in an iframe."
News.me, Digging out Digg
Things Kickstarter Should Change
Is this something you can really plan out from the beginning? How many millions of developers would love to be able to create a product that drives enough attention to ensure an acquihire?

Who knows, you might be right and some developers might be able to think of an idea, build it, and market it successfully enough to get the acquihire they want (along with a big paycheck), but I suspect most just want to build a product _someone_ finds useful.
Of course they aren't looking for originality. It can't be expected. When you give students a really difficult test, you don't expect everyone to make an "A". You expect some to fail ("D") and many to be just average ("C"). Some select few, however, will defy the norm and manage an "A".

The situation with assigned writing is the same. Some will elegantly write many droll, boring statements and back them up with some personal anecdotes or stories they came across while doing research. Those will stand out against the poorly written droll, boring statements. They'll get higher scores.

The few that break the mold and do something completely unexpected will definitely stand out. If they can back up their originality with half decent ability, they'll stand out even more than the "standard excellence". Those people will definitely get an A.

The conclusion is sound. If you beat the expectations people have of you, good things will likely happen.
For what it's worth, I've been getting these "Euro Dice Exchange" spam messages in Canada as well. I believe the emails are being sent out sorted by domain name, as the email I received was addressed to my both my university e-mail (which I used to sign up for Dropbox) and several other university e-mail addresses.

This is definitely not from the LinkedIn hack. I don't have a LinkedIn account. Combined with the people who were receiving spam at Dropbox-specific emails, I don't see how it could be anything other than Dropbox.
It only feels that way if you never bothered to change the subreddits you're subscribed to by default. /funny, /wtf, /videos, /politics are obviously overrun with teens and immaturity. Once you unsubscribe from those and subscribe to smaller, more intellectually focused subreddits, you'll find the 'old reddit'.
> If you're writing more code than natural language (documentation, discussion of specs, interaction with the team, etc) something is extremely wrong.

As long as we are just throwing claims around, I posit unless the code you write isn't 99% of what you write, something is extremely fucked up, and the orcs will take over the world.

I don't see how your claim is more valid or invalid than mine. None of the claims are backed by data, and personal perceptions are, well, personal. No one other than person experiencing it gives a damn.
It's very expensive. Kaspersky almost certainly paid its lawyers much, much more to take this case through summary judgment and trial prep than Microsoft paid the Troll to go away.

Don't get me wrong, I'm with you. But...it's easy to pontificate on the virtues of taking a principled stand against trolls when you're not responsible to greedy shareholders.

Does anyone know who owns Kaspersky? It would be interesting to note who was on the Board that OK'd the decision to open the company coffers to fund a fight against a patent troll.
It's $4.99. I'm struggling to think what kind of software you used to be able to buy for that kind of money.
I get the feeling that you only read the article and didn't watch the video because in about the third sentence he says "There have, however, been some sporadic reports of problems with the touch screen, and it turns out, the unit that I have received does seem to be affected. So, I thought I would show you what some of these problems look like."

He is obviously seeing other reports of problems and is presenting his own as a representative instance.
Did you send a follow up message?
I'd quite possibly have taken the offer, but I like to think I wouldn't have tried to gobble up as much final revenue as possible by offering it for half-off while I negotiated to turn it into abandonware.
InnoDB kernel_mutex Contention and Memory Allocators
I think almost every company would have to have such a banner. Everyone has a price. Even Marco ("and they didn’t want to pay enough"). Some prices are higher than 'the market' wants to pay right now but that doesn't mean there isn't one.
Kayak headed to Russia
Reddit allows adult content. That makes a big difference.
Streams are everywhere, as an abstraction of async I/O model.
Hope the Stream API will have a cleanup by 1.0.
95% of writing a good iOS app involves knowledge and skills unrelated to the language. The tools, the frameworks, the design and interaction models, location awareness, and more. Objective-C is a microscopic hurdle compared to getting the rest of it right.
I agree it's a nice gesture & there's nothing negative about it. Just don't expect me to bow when you throw out a few scraps to us peasants.

I'd be more impressed by somebody who is living check-to-check donating $10 to a good cause.
Kaspersky won on noninfringement grounds, but they structured their noninfringement argument in a very elegant and powerful way that essentially renders the patent-in-suit toothless while still technically valid.

Can you expound upon this point a bit? Does that mean that they were able to argue for a favorable claim construction, or was it something else?
> While it is a shame to the app effectively killed, calling it premium priced is just a reflection of how the app store has forced developers to push prices to the absolute bottom.

It's an e-mail client. The major competitors are pretty much webmail (free), Outlook Express (free), Outlook (which you'd only use if you already paid for it as part of Office), Thunderbird (free), and Apple Mail (free). So, yes, it's a premium price for an e-mail client.
Agreed. MATLAB its set of downsides. On the plus side development is rapid and since 2008 it has good support for classes. We're starting to move toward python for future work.

I think MATLAB itself isn't so bad, so much as the way its typically used -- poorly commented, organized, and untested. We put a lot of effort into clearly commenting and organizing the code. We used matlab-xunit and hudson to manage testing, which worked quite well. http://www.mathworks.com/matlabcentral/fileexchange/22846-ma..., http://www.mathworks.com/matlabcentral/fileexchange/33971-xm....
100 million dollars!
A syntax comparison across many languages
>If that works in the long run, it's great for the shareholders.

My point is that it does not work in the long run, but shareholders are sometimes interested in the short-term gains (as in improve efficiency by 20%, flip the company, not my problem)
Unless Sparrow had a guarantee that future updates were coming, what you paid for was the software as it existed at purchase time. That's what you got.
We actually do automate as much as possible (small team, lots to do). We've a Fabric script that sets up a complete new environment for a customer/tenant in one go. That includes creating and populating the virtualenv, creating a new database + database user etc. If the command is finished the customer basically is able to log in. And that script is actually only about a 200 lines of code or so.

The nice thing of Fabric is that it makes automating something hardly more work than doing something in a one-off fashion.
One thing I wonder about is why astronauts get angry when it is suggested the landings were faked rather than just laughing their faces. Aldrin even punched a guy. What's with that?
Their competitor, Symantec, just bluescreened a lot of corporate XP machines the other week, so it doesn't take much for Kaspersky to look good in comparison.
I didn't get that from Marco's post at all. I heard a developer saying "stop blaming indie developers for accepting generous offers from companies and start supporting their products instead".
Dude, you're paying for existing features and functionality.

For all you know the next release was a paid upgrade. Would that be fraudulent too?