skysight-inc/HackerNews huggingface dataset:
This seemed like an interesting story so I dug into it a bit more because the notion of a for-profit charity organization was unfamiliar to me.

But detailed information seems very scarce. The article states Avon were sued for breach of contract - but mentions no damages, despite an apparently successful claim. This seems very strange - clearly the founder was passionate about his cause, so why not take whatever penalties were paid out and use them to restart the cause?

From reading the Pallotta Teamworks (PTW) site (http://www.pallottateamworks.com/about_pallotta4.php), one can infer there was apparently an arbitration (IANAL, how do you go from "suing" to "arbitration"? I thought suing can only happen after arbitration but there's no mention of a lawsuit...) but even on that site there is absolutely zero indication of PTW receiving anything despite "winning". This story just doesn't add up.

KomenWatch, which seems rather biased, but still adds another angle to the story, suggest that Avon severed ties with PTW because of growing criticism (http://komenwatch.org/history-politics/avon-3-day/).

Anybody have a reference to a more objective discussion of these events?
I absolutely should be able to deny them access to my credit card, unless the courts specify otherwise.

WTH is the bank doiing, enforcing the terms of a contract I have with a third party? since when is that the job of the bank?

Yes, the third party can sue me. Thats fine, but I must be able to maintain control over my own bank account.
I guess your friend isn't an entrepreneur, otherwise he would conclude there is clearly an opportunity for this service, with money to be made.
I think the set of people who prefer Samsung devices and the set of people who are now going to buy a Samsung because it's "the same" as an Apple device are disjoint sets.
97% Owned
Yeah, the tower property! That made my day. Thanks for cleanly giving motivation and mathematical beauty to something that irked me up until now. Which is probably the problem of having your aesthetics drive you in the first place.
The other way around actually since the iPhone came out after it. But yes, if you were sent back in time to 2007 you would notice the similarity. I ran a mobile phone news website at the time, the similarity was definitely talked about (see the Engadget link in my OP).
That's nice. A little context: TOTP is part of OATH - Initiative for Open Authentication - and is an open standard published as RFC 6238.

For those who don't have iOS/Android/BB and/or don't want to use Google Authenticator, Wikipedia lists a few compatible applications:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Google_Authenticator

These work for Gmail too.
Do you also equate PC with Windows?
School of Hard Knocks: ‘How Children Succeed,’ by Paul Tough
Why exactly is profit / commerce considered a bad thing - especially here?

I think it's because a lot of the people who work in nonprofits and public agencies are at best ambivalent about profit and commerce, and at worse openly hostile to them, and such feelings are based primarily on emotions. So asking "Why?" in a way designed to elicit logical / intellectual reasons is unlikely to yield a lot of productive opinions (Jonathan Haidt discusses the role of non-logical emotions in cognition in his book The Righteous Mind, which is completely brilliant and ought to be read by everyone[1]).

Incidentally, my family's consulting firm provides grant writing services for nonprofits and public agencies (see http://blog.seliger.com if you're curious), and we face a lot of the profit / commerce ambivalence too. I even wrote about the issue in a post about the grant funding system and the role specialization and gains from trade play: http://blog.seliger.com/2012/03/25/why-fund-organizations-th... . A lot of people feel like nonprofits and public agencies are not supposed to be like other businesses, even though, in reality, they are a lot like other businesses except, obviously for the profit drive.

So, like other businesses, a lot of nonprofits buy goods and services they can't productively make or do themselves. We use the analogy of a plumber: most nonprofits do not have one on staff, and, when their toilets clog, they hire someone to do the job. That's fairly straightforward. But many do feel that grant applications are something like a college admissions essay, in which hiring a consultant is somehow cheating. [2] We obviously don't think so, but, nonetheless, a lot of people have that feeling and don't really think grant writing is like plumbing. But nonprofit and public agencies who submit better proposals tend to get funded more often than those who don't, so to some extent those feelings get weeded out by the "market," which still exists.

We've also argued before that there's no reason why a nonprofit grant writing agency can't exist, but in practice none do, and, if they did, the demand for their services would far outstrip supply, because grant writing is very boring, difficult, and tedious—a troika that makes for a great business, but doesn't give people the good feelings they might get from, say, doling out soup at a soup kitchen, or providing pro-bono legal work.[3]

Notes: [1] http://www.amazon.com/Righteous-Mind-Divided-Politics-Religi...

[2] Actually, hiring an admissions essay person starts to make sense when one thinks about how much might be on the line, but that's another issue.

[3] EDIT: Found the post that discusses these issues: http://blog.seliger.com/2008/08/08/tilting-at-windmills-why-... .
Unfortunately piracy has the exact opposite effect--it strengthens major music labels by preferentially harming more responsible or smaller labels.

Major label A&R looks for young bands that it can sign to 360 deals and promote like crazy to teenagers. (For those not aware, a 360 deal means the label gets a cut of every revenue source: album sales, concert receipts, sync licenses, etc.)

Smaller labels do not have the capital to operate that way, or (in many cases) choose not to operate that way out of a greater sense of responsibility to the artist. As a result they are more dependent on their cut of album sales--which have declined tremendously under the pressure of piracy.
Lowering house prices in Silicon Valley by 70% would be trivial: Let developers build what they want to build, where they want to build it.

Those with $1MM+ houses, however, oppose this for obvious reasons.
>Icons finger sized in a grid. Well given we already had desktops, and given it's a handheld device, then it's insanely obvious to have fewer icons in a grid at finger size. Low resolution screen compared to our desktops, hey maybe we should have fullscreen as the default.

PalmOS had icons in a grid looking pretty much the same too.
Bytebeat: music with no score, no instruments, and no real oscillators
I don't know how debit cards work in the US, but I need a PIN to use my debit card, so short of being forced to withdraw money at gunpoint, you won't get any access to my bank account.
A tree is a DAG that's simply connected.
If the market was just waiting for capacitive touchscreens to become available, why did it take all the others years to come up with anything competitive after the iPhone launched?

Because apple was the only one that hadn't invested in anything else. Simple as that.
Is this enough money to turn back on the wireless energy tower that will provide everyone in New York City with free electricity?
I agree with this, but I'll throw out one other way to learn Python if you already know a programming language:

1. Blast through just about any book and type in all the code getting it all to run. DO NOT just read the book. Coders constantly equate "I read about it" with "I can do it".

2. Go to any web framework that has a decent tutorial and build whatever they have you build. If web isn't your thing then find your thing and do that.

3. Pick a random thing (website, game, log parser) and try to replicate a small version of it.

4. Then try writing all the major algorithms in that language. Linked Lists, Arrays, Hashmaps, Binary Trees, string search and some hashing at a minimum.

That'll get you up to speed in the language quick, assuming you already know a couple of other ones.
I and everyone I know runs Java apps and on the server and on smart phone along with hundreds of millions of other people in the world and we all get along fine.
It's interesting that so many consumers (read: not java developers) have Java installed at all.

I code in Java for work and so it's on those boxes, but I have never found a need for it at home. I've only rarely come across a website that requires it.

(The only exception is ADOM2, but that doesn't require a browser plugin, you just download it like any other executable [that you trust])

Does anyone here write consumer-focused non-server Java software?
In the US you can swipe debit cards as "credit" and you don't have to pin/sign most of the time under $20.
Surprisingly most software devs I've met understand arrays and hashes, but few know what a linked list is.

I think this is an artifact on many of them using high level languages where linked lists are rarely used.

That's no excuse though
In case anybody at FireEye reads this: is Windows XP the only OS vulnerable to this attack?
Well, you can read the same quote from CNET if Groklaw is the issue.

http://news.cnet.com/8301-13579_3-57500358-37/exclusive-appl...

I hope you don't consider CNET biased. If anything, they are usually criticized for being Apple-biased.
I've been thinking a bit lately about how web video content is beginning to become "legitimate." With series like Geek & Sundry's Tabletop [1], Penny Arcade's "reality show" [2], and hidden gems like YouTube's The Vault [3], I'm starting to reach a point where I could even cancel Netflix and just watch online web videos.

My guess is, that five years from now, both Netflix and YouTube will look like networks or producers than just distributors.

[1] http://tabletop.geekandsundry.com/episodes/
[2] http://penny-arcade.com/patv/show/pa-the-series
[3] http://www.youtube.com/user/VaultShow
Perhaps look into # of github issues closed.. but that means you need to somehow account for "major" bugs versus "feature requests", etc.. and make the tagging is as consistent as possible.
"I very much appreciate his self promotion tactics."

I agree the self promotion is good for Joel. I know who he is because of what he has written even though I've been critical along the same lines as the parent. But the parent's thoughts are important also in pointing out to anyone reading this (who is green) that isn't aware of what is going on here. Then they can decide for themselves how they want to listen to or use the advice.
> Revisionist? No. Personal opinion? Sure. I personally remember the iPhone coming out and thinking it was awful. Fucking awful. And so did everyone I knew.

I had the opposite experience. So did everyone I knew - they wanted one, badly. So did millions of others.

My point was that it was dubbed the "JesusPhone" in 2007, not 2008. You're entitled to your opinion, of course.

> They don't deserve a monopoly. As you said, they didn't really "invent" anything

If they have valid patents, then yes, they deserve a temporary monopoly on their approach. I don't like the terms of patents, they should be shorter. But I do think they exist for a reason.

> But right now the courts are involved, and the US courts (in contrast to some other courts) are saying that Apple have an exclusive right to features such as "pinch to zoom on a phone" that Apple didn't even invent.

They invent the first implementation of pinch to zoom ever, no. But they invented their approach to it as part of the broader innovation of the iPhone. That's what their patents are about, and they're so far deemed valid.
I get the impression that the demand for city life is increasing. (Backed up by research by Richard Florida and others.)

One hundred years ago, industry located near natural resources or methods of transport. Large rivers, the Great Lakes, natural seaports, etc. were of huge practical importance, and most industries needed to be relatively close to related industries. So, for example, you saw lots of factories which made car parts in the general vicinity of Detroit.

A website, however, even a huge one like Google, you can make anywhere. And since access to natural resources is no longer really an issue, what's left? Access to people.
Great, now only if they actually encrypted my files.
The irony, of course, is that Oatmeal's last fund raiser was for cancer research and wildlife conservation.
Hey Zed! Thanks for all your great work! Signed, your student.
Does Object-Oriented Programming really suck?
Not sure how that's relevant. Are you implying that Apple is like Microsoft regarding anti-trust, because TechCrunch makes itself hard to read in Mobile Safari without downloading a specific app?
> losing your distinctiveness

You honestly think that is why they lost?

They lost because the stopped trying to compete - and just ran off to "Mommy" government screaming "Microsoft took my toy!" instead of fighting back.

And I didn't sell on outcome - this was a relatively short case - I was just waiting for the market to increase my exit price - 660 - from 600 (http://www.google.com/finance?client=ob&q=NASDAQ:AAPL).
You've obviously never accepted credit cards as a merchant. The process is heavily in the customer's favor.

It is incredibly hard to win as a merchant in any kind of dispute. The burden of proof is on the merchant not the customer.

The merchant pays a fee regardless of the outcome, and if you end up with more than 1% chargebacks your account is cancelled. The net effect is that any merchant who is doing this on a regular basis won't be accepting credit cards for long.

Additionally, the system is so far in the customer's favor that it's causing a fairly large fraud problem for merchants. It's bad enough that my small business won't accept credit cards for very large purchases unless the customer has a history with us.
How to get distribution for a new product
we work to enable seasteading communities — floating cities — which will allow the next generation of pioneers to peacefully test new ideas for government.

It's an interesting idea. I don't see why a small oceangoing socialist or libertarian or whatever community wouldn't be viable.

The key would be the fact that they're made up of a small self selecting group. It's much easier for a group of like minded people to get along than for a much larger and diverse nation to do so.
TextDown: Markdown editor for Chrome
Yes, they pick up hardware and put them together. Why do you consider this as an insult to Apple? I don't think anybody implied what they are doing is easy. Obviously it isn't. If it were, anybody would easily be able to create a great product.
> Because, as I said, the market wasn't ready for large capacitive touch screens.

Hm, I don't think the reason competitors had their own operating system and stylus-based touch screens had anything to do with the market being ready for touch screens or not -- nobody created something that was usable, so of course the market didn't adapt to it. Bear with me on my small straw-man argument here: It's kind of like couchsurfing.com existed before airbnb.com, but few people let random strangers stay at their home before airbnb existed. You could say that "the market wasn't ready" or you could say that airbnb executed in a way that transformed the market. If Apple did not create the intuitive interfaces for the iPhone, we might still say "the market isn't ready for large touch screens".
When have businessmen not been wealthier than artists? And when have artists not been more popular than businessmen?
BackTrack Review by Example
My solution to this is to use an American Express card. Every single time I've had a problem, domestic or international, they've been on my side, and disputes are easy to handle. (the correct Amex cards to have are Starwood Preferred Guest for USA use and Platinum for international or status (lounge access, etc.) use.)
Absolutely.

When a civil contract is broken the appropriate response is a trial in a court of law. Businesses are quite familiar with the debt collection process. A judge and possibly a jury are needed to resolve these types of disputes fairly.

Under no circumstances should a merchant be permitted to forcefully take funds from another person, outside the purview of the law.
I haven't found this mythical EU/US difference in overall attitudes, either in history or the present, except on specific issues. Europeans generally have higher taxes and better social-welfare systems, but not particularly different attitudes besides that. Both pro-business market-oriented views and skeptical-of-business populist views have long been common in both places. Heck, many American founding fathers fought in the French Revolution, and some (like Thomas Paine) wrote some of the more famous "left-wing" documents left by that revolution. And Denmark has some of today's more successful multinational businesses (Maersk, Lego, Carlsberg), which are quite popular domestically. Yet somehow Europeans generally assume that Americans are all Randians, and Americans assume that Europeans are all Marxists.
Sometimes, people use the word "invented" when they actually meant "created". I suspect that's true in this case.

English is an immensely flexible language, for better or worse. :)
here's the full context from dropbox forums: https://forums.dropbox.com/topic.php?id=66910
The basic affordances underlying credit cards are backward: “Here's my wallet -- go ahead and take what you think you need.”

Carrying a computer (i.e. phone) running a user agent can vastly improve the interaction. Something like:

1. Transmit an identifier from user agent to merchant via radio, barcode, or some other method.

2. Merchant's system asks user agent (either directly or through a service such as the user's bank) for a dollar amount.

3. User agent asks the user: "do you accept this charge? yes/no"

At no point is the merchant given a piece of information that allows them to charge whatever amount they want. The transaction isn't complete before the user approves the amount on their own device.

It's kind of amazing we haven't switched to something along these lines already.
"Useless" is subjective, but the jQuery object does a lot of extra work above the vanilla example.

$ isn't just a syntax layer on top of querySelectorAll. When you do $('p'), it first queries the DOM for everything that matches that selector, then it creates new jQuery objects to wrap each of the returned nodes as well as creating a jQuery object to contain them.

If all you're doing is setting the innerHTML of these objects, it's a non-trivial overhead.
I believe so, according to wikipedia, no other multi-touch phones existed before the iphone.
So Apple brought it to market at the exact point in time that it became viable. The other companies were "waiting" as you say, so why did they wait so long? Didn't they see that the technology was about to become viable?

I don't buy that theory. By the sales of the first iPhone, the market was obviously ready. Had it been "barely usable" it would have flopped completely.

Capacitive touch screens use the same technology as touchpads, and I haven't seen any proof that those screens were too expensive before 2006 and that technological advancements broght the price down after that.

What I do think is that Apple was willing to bet on touchscreens and place bulk orders that made the price come down, whereas other companies happy with the status quo and unwilling to redesign their mobile operating systems to fit a new technology.
"and experience that you shouldn't ask anyone how much they're willing to pay for anything."

My experience, over many years, is the same as well.

People first of all don't even know what they will pay. They can be manipulated into paying more than they were willing to by anchoring and a whole host of negotiating tactics. As another example, just take a look at the way that auctions work. You might decide upfront you will only pay $100 for an item but if someone outbids you the thought of losing the item when you can offer $5 more draws you into bidding more than you would have expected to.

Also look at the way infomercials work in manipulating people to make purchases. "What if we told you this costs $15, well it's $10 and we're going to give you 2 of them". Etc.
For gyms, you can go to Costco and buy a 2-year 24 Hour Fitness all-Sports club membership for $320, prepaid, too.
>If you are willing to negotiate with the owner/manager, they might even allow you to pay the full year up front - because that's basically the same thing (this was my argument)

One difference is that with a credit card on file the company can bill you for damages, or allow you to purchase accessories after hours by signing a form.
Well done. I wish more sites would move to using standard OTP protocols. I hate having to carry around and use a separate dongle for each company that provides two factor authentication.
It depends on what you're trying to do. Mostly, I try to write code that displays the same in every possible browser without special-casing or using confusing idioms. CPU cycles are cheap. A webpage that loads a little slow is a possible lost sale. A webpage that fails to load is a definite lost sale.
A lot of online meeting/sharing/video conf sites seem to require Java. That's the largest reason I'm aware of.
What do you mean, they stopped trying to compete? Are you implying that Jony Ive and Scott Forstall are sitting on their butts right now thinking "good thing we won, we won't have to compete any more?"

What evidence do you have that they've stopped competing? Anyway, maybe you should have waited until the new iPhone and iPad come out before selling your stock.
Impressive, though a bit jumpy/slow on some of the larger images.

Another well designed government (UK) website: https://www.gov.uk/
Just a quick question: What does appspydr offer compared to Cocoa Literature List[1], which also has search from a curated list of articles, plus chronological lists of articles by (broad, but well organized) categories?

[1] http://osx.hyperjeff.net/Reference/CocoaArticles
Just a little side tip on something that works for us.

We have a service that we price at $120.

When you purchase that service you are told that it takes about 24 hours to setup. We then offer the ability to purchase 2 to 4 hour setup at an additional $15 or 4 to 8 hour at an addition $10 or 8 to 12 hour at an additional $5.

The majority of people purchase the $10 option. Presumably for the same reason people choose to pay for overnight, two day etc. shipping instead of waiting 3 to 5 days (or whatever the offering is).

When we added this option a while back it was like instant money since we were typically completing the service setup in the 2 4o 4 hour time anyway.
Two-Factor authentication sucks. It's too hard for users. Most people will never us it. Dropbox should consider using Rublon (yes, that's my startup): https://rublon.com

7 reasons why you should add Rublon to your website:
http://blog.rublon.com/2012/why-add-rublon/
At the gym where I'm a member, there were two separate forms to fill out: one for membership payment, one for incidental payment. Membership could be up front, automatic credit card payment, and so on. Incidental payment was optional, and could only be a credit card.
Some history, for those not in the know:

http://www.techdirt.com/articles/20110707/03264014993/riaa-a...

http://www.techdirt.com/articles/20100712/23482610186.shtml

http://www.salon.com/technology/feature/2000/06/14/love/prin...

Spoiler: bands get about 20% of what the label gets. Your album can sell 1 million copies and your band might still owe the label $500,000. Labels take 10-20% off the top for breakage fees. Breakage. As in vinyl records that broke during shipping.