skysight-inc/HackerNews huggingface dataset:
That is a really nice sales letter and I've bookmarked it to read through repeatedly when I need to write one. It nails the long form sales format and manages to do so without sounding sleazy[1].

I particularly like the Do not buy this course section which qualifies potential customers.

[1] To be fair depending upon the target demographic the sleaziness can be increased without causing problems. If you were building a product for hard core sales guys Your Customers Can Still Afford Branded Groceries: Learn How To Capture This Wasted Revenue Today! might do brilliantly.
Patrick has earned trust in the community by giving away so much valuable information. My first thought was: it's about time you sold some of this info and then I saw the reason: "I got tired of saying no." Good stuff, and thanks.
I am a current leasing agent; there is a lot to the job.
A product that gets better as people use it is basically a beta.

Apple isn't known for releasing beta products so I think it's not a wonder they are noticing the consumers backlash.

I won't be upgrading to iOS6 until I have Google Maps.
Josh Dibb is sorry for stealing $26,000 from Kickstarter pledges
This is what a lot of websites seem to have a problem with. It's not that difficult to put an href in your anchor. Then in your click handler, simply check modifier keys (ctrl, alt, shift) and if none of them are pressed, return true. Otherwise, do your HTML5 history (or hashbang) URL change normally. Here's kinda how I've done it in CoffeeScript (though not sure if exactly right):

linkClickHandler = (e) ->
# can't have meta key
if not e.originalEvent?.ctrlKey and not e.originalEvent?.altKey and not e.originalEvent?.shiftKey
# defer the work so we can kill the link right away
deferred = () =>
href = $(e.target).attr 'href'
if href?
#do something here like history.pushState
setTimeout deferred, 0
# stop bubbling and return false
e.stopPropagation()
return false
else
return true

This gives the users that want to save links and open them in other ways, but still have a good feel when left click only. Clicking on directories in Github source trees demonstrate this well.
Interview with Ajay Mehta, co-founder of FamilyLeaf (YC W12)
Maps is a smartphone killer app - I remember my friend being able to map (in a rudimentary displkay) nearby restaurants on a 2004 windows mobile phone and thinking how awesome that was. Just like I was amazed when the iPhone completely blew away the competition in 2007.

However, is it a mission-critical app? What percentage of the userbase actually needs maps on a day to day basis? What did you do in 2005 when your GPS completely failed? You call the destination... it's not like you don't have a phone in your hand. Failing that, you ask a nearby stranger.

I presume Apple went ahead because Maps is likely less important to their userbase than, say, the Music app and definitely less critical than the browser.
When I clicked this, I assumed it was going to be Grove going back on their statement that they were closing down, and I was concerned. That sort of wavering doesn't bode well for customer trust. In a weird way, I'm glad someone else is in charge not because the Grove team was bad, but from a PR perspective this just looks good.
It's a pity that Google don't have a better way to handle problems with Adsense. In most cases I can see the benefits of not offering customer service, but when you're talking about losing individual customers making Google $10k+ per year, I would have thought some kind of personal contact beyond a non-specific copy-paste of adsense rules would be intelligent.

(I speak from experience here. Adsense was disabled on my own site - which does about 600k page impressions a month - in late August, for some very vague reasons. I'd appeal, but I don't know what I was doing wrong, which makes fixing it rather hard. Instead, I've been working on replacing Adsense revenue with other sources - but that has its own problems.)
Personally, I spend so much time in the shell that it's definitely worth spending some effort to increase my ability to use it productively. I switched from tcsh to bash about a year ago after decades of using tcsh. Switching to bash was a mistake; I probably should have switched to zsh instead. Bash is broken as an interactive shell in more ways than I can enumerate; it is a constant source of annoyance and frustration. I have no great love for tcsh, but it is far better as an interactive shell, despite the fact that it truly sucks for programming.

Re what comes with the OS: I haven't logged into a Unix/Linux box in a decade that hasn't had zsh on it.
Patrick has earned trust in the community by giving away so much valuable information. My first thought was that it's about time you sold some of this info. The reason is great: "I got tired of saying no." Good stuff, and thanks for all the free advice along the way.
I can attest to the brain-crackness. We're a bootstrapped startup that is starting to have a compelling product, and starting to think more about how to market it. We're definitely aware of the idea of lifecycle marketing and have been thinking about implementing it.

If purchasing this course lets us get a lifecycle marketing system going that is 10% more effective two weeks earlier than if we had to learn the lessons ourselves, it would pay for itself. Of course, if we had to smash our brains against it and try to pick out a cohesive strategy from across the internet it's very likely to take us a long time - months or years - to learn all the things in the course.

If you're in the target market for this product, and you know patio11 enough to trust him, the sales pitch boils down to "You give me several hundred dollars, and I'll give you thousands of dollars."

Haha, but even with that rational analysis done, the idea of spending that much on something pains my bootstrapping mind tremendously.
I feel the same way. However I also live in California. I feel like its extremely accurate here, but it is also where it was essentially born. So it is not surprising it needs more work in other places. For everyone I know that lives here and uses it with normal habits, it seems to work just as good.

In time, and I suspect shorter than people estimate, the data quality will vastly improve. No software is perfect on the first release, and apples software is no exception. iTunes used to be glitchy in its early days, me.com was terrible when it first came out, but these issues have been rectified for the most part.

Google maps once led me 18 miles into the middle of nowhere for a dentist appointment. Sure, this error is fixed now, but the dentist office shows up correctly on maps. So It seems like here (in California) the data is better than it was when google maps was new.

I suspect by end of year, the majority of use-cases will work fine in many more places than california. Who knows, but if I were betting.. :)
> one malicious visitor away from "fraudulent activity"

I worry sometimes about the potential for malicious drive-bys. I've thought about trying to set up some code that registers when someone clicks on an ad and and then shows a non-ad in its place for the next X page loads to try to prevent that sort of thing. Not sure if it would work, though.
I support loosening immigration requirements... but another complimentary option would be for tech companies to raise wages. Why not do that?
The idea appears to be that array languages have builtin functions for operations that would require map/reduce/etc in the applicative programming paradigm. I agree that is convenient, but the downside is that only array operations that are supported this way are the ones that are anticipated by the language designer. If you want to split up an array in some way other than intended, you're back to applicative programming, so your language needs good support for that too.

I would argue that the more important thing that makes something an "array language" is that scatter/gather operations on arrays have syntactic support, as described here:

http://prog21.dadgum.com/141.html

As a personal anecdote: In my thesis work I switched most of my data analysis workflow from MATLAB to R. In terms of paradigms I'd say R is a slightly worse array-language (although it does have builtin syntax for things that require messing with sub2ind() in MATLAB) but a much better functional language than MATLAB. The empirical result is that I finished my first analysis project -- including the time it took to learn R -- faster than it had taken me to do a similar task in MATLAB, using 1/3 the code. Add to that that there is presently more active development of open graphics and statistical analysis libraries in R, and I haven't really looked back, though I occasionally think of picking up an APL-derivative like J to play with.
Voice recognition!
Déjà-vu: NBA Live 13 canceled by EA, Again...
When I was applying for a job a large majority of the companies were looking primarily for python developers. Google uses python and that alone is probably enough to never need to ask the parent's question.
If a language is not making the front-pages of /r/programming and Hacker News much it does not mean that it is dead. Maybe just not as "hip" or even "hyped" as it used to be.
This space of "handle tasks in email" is starting to explode since pg called it as a giant opportunity. Indeed, I believe Mail Pilot are launching their public beta soon - the timing makes me think these guys were (savvily, tbf) trying to jump in alongside it.

It's not just another "todo list", it's really dealing with the pain of remembering the promises you make in email, and the fact email is used to discuss all the work we do, but is completely disconnected from our other management tools.

It's also obviously a positive thing that lots of innovative new products are getting involved: a single pioneer does not a movement make.

Disclaimer:
I've been working on ActiveInbox for Gmail[1], first as a hobby project and later as a bootstrapped business, since 2006. In fact I think we were the earliest, certainly for Gmail.

Oddly enough the transition from hobby to business came about in a very Kickstarter way, but long before it existed -- early users simply wanted to give money to keep us going, we refused at first because it was a "hassle to deal with tax" (this is also long before Lean Startup: customer validation was clearly not something we were tuned too), and eventually set up a PayPal donate button.

And I'm really proud of our community - we've been discussing ways to improve email very openly since we started. They drive ideas, and we implement them to create a very experimental product.

I'd really like to write up our experience for HN, including the experience of getting an invite to YC, but not a place. There are a lot of stories of how regular people - our customers - pulled a business out of a geek hobby, and lots of mistakes and missteps I've made that could have been avoided.

[1]: http://www.activeinboxhq.com
It does appear to be a form of rewarded behavior, so there is an implicit approval.
Yeah, I've used VoiceXML and it is horrid. Definitely made by some Java devs.
Another great YC startup!
The problem for Apple is, they'll get a bug report something like:

Your maps is rubbish, I couldn't find the park, where is streetview too!

They will then have to have someone look at that data, try to find the area, a park nearby, compare with whatever licensed satellite data they have, and try to redraw that section, or they have to request new data from tomtom, wait a year, and hope it is fixed. That is a huge task, and not one I'm confident Apple will ever manage to pull off. The satellite data they have put into the app is appalling so if they try to use that as a reference...

And that's for the 0.5% of people who bother to report a problem - the rest will just lower their opinion of Apple and look at other solutions next time they're shopping for a device.
What would that achieve? Are Microsoft's wages low, in your opinion? How much higher should they go?
Show HN: Transparent data encryption for your Core Data application
A lot of things that are built on Django probably use Python: Disqus, Pintrest, Instagram, Fitocracy, some Mozilla stuff, and a lot of news sites (just to name a few).
500 Internal Server Error

nginx/1.1.17
Probably you used Linux at the time it wasn't very mature. I'm running Gentoo now and never had to reinstall to fix things. With modern computers compiling is very fast, most software compiles in less than a minute. I spend more time solving binary compatibility problems with CentOS (at work) than compiling stuff via portage.

I recently bought a new video card (nvidia), plugged it and then booted linux. It just worked out of the box. Then I proceeded to boot windows, it started on a low resolution video mode because the current driver failed. So had to download and install latest drivers manually. The whole procedure took like 3 or 4 restarts.
Wondeful! Lots of room for follow-on patents! (said the patent lawyer)
How do you manage to get the books the at the kindle sale price when you don't own a kindle? Strange, when I got my Nexus 7, I did give the kindle app a try but it wouldn't let me purchase any books unless I paid the hardcover price. I have amazon prime, but without owning a kindle device, these ebook sales are meaningless to me.
Python makes the front page here almost every day. I think this thread is being trolled.
Ripe Delicious Strawberries in Graphics Design
also time.After: http://golang.org/pkg/time/#After
I need to see more evidence. The two videos they provided from the viewpoint of the "judges" show that the judges had no idea how to play the game. No serious player stands in one spot firing nonstop. One video showed the judge had no aiming skills whatsoever.

What was the criteria? "That one must be human because it can move and shoot at the same time!"

This reminds me of the awesome days of the ReaperBot, that cheating bastard.
You missed significant language here -- R (http://www.r-project.org/). Its array model is way better than Matlab, has all functional goodies on board, excellent expressiveness, can flawlessly represent real data (there are built-in missing values, ordered and unordered categorical variables, data commenting, arbitrary metadata, even a "spreadsheet" type) and absolutely huge library (biased into data science, but it features linear algebra, optimization and DEs). It is also pretty fast, especially because it is easy to write C/Fortran accelerators so they are present behind many library functions. And in contrast to Julia/Cobra it exists for a while, so way more bugs/flaws is already fixed/understood.
Finely Tuned Consultant: Chris Lema
I don't think you understand what the word "project" means. It does not mean complex software.
Apple Launches App Store Feature Section for Alternative Maps
I still use python a lot. Out of curiosity then what are the popular languages now?
Haskell Parsec vs Yacc/Bison/Antlr: why and when to use Parsec?
That has been tried already. See VoiceXML (http://www.voicexml.org) and CCXML (http://www.w3.org/TR/ccxml/)

The problem with those two standards, is that they are not being followed well, and are also far to granular for most implementations. Twilio was a real breakthrough in terms of getting projects off the ground fast.

Tropo and Plivo have also emerged as additional options in that space.

The main problem I see with this new API is that there really is no incentive for me to go to them over Twilio, Tropo or Plivo. What Twilio doesn't provide is covered well by Tropo and Plivo. The only interesting thing offered is unlimited inbound per channel, however, if you have SIP, you can get it cheaper from companies like FlowRoute (http://flowroute.com/services/inbound/) and pay $18 per channel, rather than $27.

Compare this with:
Twilio - first mover, known reputation, strong funding.
Tropo - backed by Voxeo (over a decade in business), offers many enterprise-grade things; Prism (IVR server) is opensource.
Plivo - a lot cheaper than everyone else, and offers open source layer for FreeSWITCH.
That's good to hear! Our team actually uses this...
CEOs May Find It Lonely At The Top, But Not Stressful
Apple had an existing agreement with Google for the data used in the old Maps app for one more year, and they chose to terminate it early. They could have released New Maps alongside Old Maps, made them optional for a year while the data matures, and none of this would have been an issue.

http://www.theverge.com/2012/9/25/3407614/apple-over-a-year-...
RoboHornet’s nest
Aren't there still a lot of devs in flyover country who complain about finding few positions? Or is the fact they chose not to relocate being weighed against them?
Yes this was how I learnt programming. When I was learning programming I found some concepts easier to learn in one language than the other. It wasn't about mastering any language at that stage, it was about understanding different concepts. Some languages implement certain ideas better than others.

I started with QBASIC, then went to PASCAL,C,C++. When Java came out it made me understand C++ a lot better. Java had a cleaner implementation of the concepts.

Since I started programming in Ruby, it has made me understand Javascript in a way I never did before.
If it were a genuine crisis, rather than a 'genuine crisis', wages would be genuinely rising more than they are, for anyone with anything close to the skills sought. Instead, this strikes me as a push to get cheaper workers, rather than actually paying for a scarce resource.

But maybe I'm just cynical.
(there should be a gender neutral singular pronoun in english)

There are a number of attempts at this but I've found Spivak pronouns (specifically the Elverson set) to be a particularly elegant solution. The easiest description is "the 'they'-form pronouns without the 'th'". Thus, your first sentence would become "In the article, OP explains that ey ([...]) are in middle of analyzing data from a certain income group who are used to getting around the web, who handle both desktops and phones."

Anecdotally, I've found most people seem to understand what I'm saying online and offline people either understand me or think I'm saying "they" and understand my point anyway. Plus, this pronoun set sounds more natural than other constructions and is easy to remember since it's keyed to a set you already know.
Local MILFS Contacts
They aren't high enough to make up for working at an unpopular, stagnant, and fumbling company.
Well, if supply is tight at a given price, one might think a rise in price might spur greater supply – basic economics and all.
Long form sales copy is all about bullet points, headings, subheadings - essentially presenting a ton of copy in an easily digestible format - specifically avoiding looking like a wall of text!
I thought you were kidding at first. The algorithm is apparently better than humans at detecting cats.
Perhaps I am being too judgmental. I have know special knowledge of Apple's corporate culture. I'm just saying how it seems to me.

I agree that Apple had to cut loose from Google and develop their own mapping. And they needed new features for the iPhone 6 launch, which gave them a hard schedule limit.

Maybe "everybody" did decide that the mapping sucked but they had to ship it. That seems rather un-Apple to me: they are obsessive about user experience and have cut features in the past when the tech didn't work. So I'm not convinced by that argument.

(Edit: added second para)
From the Huffington Post:

"The Bureau Of Labor Statistics has released its annual Occupational Employment and Wages report, and the top-paying industries are dominated by health care professionals. In fact, nine of the 10 highest-paid jobs in America are in the health care industry. The only other group that made the top 10 is corporate executives."

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2011/05/20/top-ten-highest-pai...

Here's a link to the full report:

http://www.bls.gov/news.release/ocwage.htm

Like a lot of other people here, I'd support a stronger emphasis on skilled immigration to the US, but I don't see compelling evidence of an acute shortage of engineers relative to other fields. In fact, I think the low level of interest in these fields is a rational response to market signals, especially at the elite levels.
I think what they say about "Internet time" and the length of people's memories might be correct. This is, in fact, very in keeping with Apple's character. Apple doesn't often screw up, but when they do, they will definitely own up to it. (Keeping in mind that your buddy Joe or some high-priced analyst claiming that Apple screwed up is not the same thing as them actually screwing up...)

See, for example, four years ago when they issued an apology and a free account extension for the launch of MobileMe: http://www.macworld.com/article/1134530/mobileme.html
Shortage of tech workers willing to run on carrotless treadmills reaches epic proportions.
Carrotless treadmills thrown away.
I also like the new maps - I can see it turning into a great product. My main issue is the missing public transport information... I still use the mobile web Google Maps for that which is unfortunately slower than the old native app.
> This feels unprecedented.

Hardly so – Apple had to issue a similar mea culpa for Mobile Me back around this time in 2008. The big difference is that instead of apologizing to a small subset of customers, Apple has had to address all iOS 6 users. So this time it has to come from the CEO. (But don't think for a minute Steve didn't help pen the last one.)

They've been here, with a mouthful of crow, before. Large-scale, cloud-based services are not in Apple's DNA, so every time they try it seems to hurt the first time around.
Party survival tips and tricks for geeks with social anxiety
Buy TomTom (people seem to like their app for iOS). Swap the current data for the one used by TomTom in their app. Problem solved.
Indeed, and Djikstra's statement that Fortran produces brain damage....
My experience went basically like this:

1. Check out the location of my new house. Apple's data is years old and predates the whole development. The area is new, but not THAT new. Google and OpenStreetMap both have it fine.

2. Use it to navigate to a park I'd never been to before. Get told "you have arrived" while going under an interstate overpass. Find a driveway to pull off in, spend about ten minutes screwing around with the park's web site verifying the address, finding a better map, etc., finally figure out that the app sent me about half a mile in the wrong direction down this road. Google, of course, has the correct location for the address.

3. Use it to navigate to a restaurant I'd never been to before. "You have arrived" happens in front of a tiny strip mall with no restaurants. Wander around the area for a while and finally find it. Later on I check to see what happened, and it's pretty incredible. Maps had been opened with a link of the form, Restaurant@latitude,longitude. Stripping off the "Restaurant@" portion gives the correct location. With the restaurant name in it, Maps ignored the lat/lon and preferred its POI data, which was just plain wrong.

At that point, I gave up on the thing. Note that this is not the sequence of bad experience that were interspersed with good ones. These are the only experiences I had in using the thing, aside from two trivial tests navigating to and from day care which I do almost every day anyway.

Many other people I've talked to report similar experiences. Addresses are misplaced, POIs are misplaced, stuff is mislabeled or severely out of date, etc.
Hi Patrick,

I'd like to preface this comment by saying that I'm a huge fan of your work. You've personally helped me a ton.

That said, I must ask what made you choose video as the medium for this content. Frankly, you're a much stronger writer than on-camera personality.

Even beyond congeniality, why is five hours of video at 150wpm superior to a medium-length ebook I can read at 800wpm?

Thanks!