skysight-inc/HackerNews huggingface dataset:
*Apps that are likely to make us lots of money may bend some of these rules.
It's a tongue-in-cheek troll, and a beautiful one at that. Someone filed this on behalf of his/her son. Check out the last lines of the application, with emphasis added:

-- snip --

Lastly, it should be noted that because pulling alternately on one chain and then the other resembles in some measure the movements one would use to swing from vines in a dense jungle forest, the swinging method of the present invention may be referred to by the present inventor and his sister as "Tarzan" swinging. The user may even choose to produce a Tarzan-type yell while swinging in the manner described, which more accurately replicates swinging on vines in a dense jungle forest. Actual jungle forestry is not required.

Licenses are available from the inventor upon request.

-- end snip --

edit: formatting
Good documentation is really hard to do, but it's also one of the most important things for any product or project. If no one uses what you make then it truly is useless, and you will never get people to use something unless they can figure out how.
Maybe from a hardware point of view, but not from a software point of view. Case in point, iTunes is one of the worst pieces of software I've ever had to use. They could have made it so much easier to add music, etc, but it is probably the worst piece of software that I'm FORCED to use.
#CloudFail: Six pitfalls to avoid with enterprise cloud deployment
Yes, they should have teamed up with another direct competitor, because that's worked so well for them in the past.

Why go through Microsoft when their data is Nokia based anyway?
> leaving Apple the only major player on their device.

> over time customers will just accept that is their only option

As Tim Cook mentioned, there are already map apps available for Bing, MapQuest and Waze, and turn-by-turn navigation apps from all the major players. Google announced that they have not submitted their own maps app for iOS.

Unless, perhaps rightly, you're considering Google the only major player. More reason for Apple to switch now.
Ask HN: Alternatives to Adsense
Hi,

what decent alternatives to Adsense exist for a personal development/life opinions blog ?

Thanks
Immutability means it's a lot easier to change your code safely. And the functional style encourages better separation of concerns, again making it easier to change something in one place. Strong typing is really good in a large codebase for making it harder for errors to propagate - if you make an error in a given function that changes the return type, you can immediately localise the problem to that function.

Writing the initial code is likely to be if anything slower in a functional language; the real advantage comes in maintenance.

(disclaimer: I don't actually know haskell, though I've used several functional languages and written functional-style code in several more)
Particle jets at edge of a supermassive black hole
> Even non tech people understand that a 4 x 2ghz processor is not a 8ghz processor..

Having spoken to a few non-tech people I'm pretty sure that I could find a bunch who don't understand anything in that sentence.

Having spoken to some supposedly tech-savvy children on 4chan /g/ I know that there's a lot of confusion about cores and processors and speed, and that's before you talk about potential benefits and disbenefits.
One of the few product launches you see nowadays that does not have a share button. Why facebook didn't put a share button on there is puzzling.
The complicated history of simple scientific facts
Wouldn't it make more sense to just send a friend request to candidates 2-3 weeks ahead of the interview?

I mean, if you want to see facebook/timeline information - that's the simplest way (assuming they even have non-public profiles to start with). Twitter is pretty much open season.
5 second rule for good homepage design
Programming Kindergarden! Love it. Great presentation.
I'm flat against businesses asking for passwords, the very idea is so absurd I can't believe it exists.

That said, while workers have rights so do employers (this is not one of them) but being able to run your business without being unfairly accused of something seems to be what the reps where arguing against; specifically that what the dems proposed would have enabled the FCC to overreach their authority. Or are you like a big fan of the FCC having even more power?
There are two companies that have done the legwork to acquire a really really good database of mapping information:

* TeleAtlas, which is in bed with Google

* Navteq, which is owned by Nokia, which has a deal to provide maps to Bing

So now maps is one of the few areas where both Google/Android and Microsoft/Nokia have a blatant advantage over Apple. Why would they want to give that up?
So like Google Maps in Germany, then, eh?

Google Maps never had any transit info in Germany. It never was a joke, it always was awesome (even if always fraught with problems and errors).
Even Windows 8 early adopters prefer Windows 7 by two to one
Power of CSS filters
That question has been answered 100s of times in various other HN threads, Reddit's haskell subtopic, stackoverflow, blogs, etc. There are many really good reasons - I would encourage you to make some simple use of Google to find out.
As an aside - do you feel Google's customer service will improve over the next few years? How would it benefit them (considering they already hold a monopoly over the market)?
Zo koop je de meest geschikte ski’s
Maps become exponentially better the closer they get to accurate.

Even if Apple has, let's say, 90% of the map data/information that Google does, the minute you are sent to the wrong location, or to a store that doesn't exist, or try to get transit directions and can't, or get routed via the most convoluted route possible to your destination, the Maps app has failed.
Azure is a redundancy service. They have their own data centre that hosts iCloud.
Experiences using XMonad as my windowmanager
I disagree with the cutting the deal short. The Maps app was in beta for months, was announced in April and I bet that Google knew it was coming even before the official announcement.

Quite frankly, Google has had plenty of time to be working on a Maps application for iOS. It's not like they have to reinvent the wheel with this, they have iOS development teams and experience with mobile mapping applications.

I think that Google willfully chose not to have a product ready. It's a good explanation when you realize they had months of lead time, and when you factor in all of the CEO "I don't know nothing' about no app" comments.
ha! fair enough. well, at least we didn't waste a ton of time on it???
Use YouTube as an Endless Music Player
Turn YouTube into an online music radio and listen to your favorite songs in an unending, uninterrupted stream.
Encouraging Better Client Participation In Responsive Design Projects
I've tried a few times to learn Haskell, but always tend to lose steam. Last time I got as far as monads before petering out. So I am definitely not a great person to try explaining the practical benefits of Haskell programming, because I've never written anything more complicated than a moderately difficult project euler solution.

However, despite never actually reaching escape velocity with the language, I don't feel like I've wasted any time at all. It's made me a much better programmer. The restrictions that the language places on you (e.g., the inability to change a value once you declare it) forces you to really grapple with functional principles.

As a result, I am so much better at reasoning recursively, and figuring out how to compose functions, that I hardly believe it. As a ruby programmer, I thought I understood recursion. I thought I understood higher order functions. And I did. But at such a basic level that I had no idea how basic my understanding was. Haskell totally opened my eyes.

So, imho, even if you never use haskell, even if you never even fully learn it, the attempt will almost certainly make you a better programmer. Unless, of course, you've been already messing around with one of the other nearly pure functional programming languages out there.
I don't know about chitika, but I used adBrite and never saw a dime from it, whereas I was able to make a modest amount with Project Wonderful. Not as much as AdSense, but unlike AdSense, Project Wonderful never accused me of fraud and then ran off with over $300 that I had earned through their service. If I had known how Google would treat me, I never would have signed up, regardless of how much I made in the meantime.
> I can spend time writing code or writing documentation.

You are selling yourself short. Your documentation the first thing people see. If it says "incomplete, confusing, and half-hearted", I'm going to hit the back button in about 15 seconds. I'm not going to spend 15 minutes reading your code to see if the first impression is wrong unless I think there's no viable alternative project.

Conversely, if your documentation is clear, thorough, and gives examples of usage, I'm likely to trust your project and dig deeper.

It's even been argued that writing the docs first helps you develop better: http://tom.preston-werner.com/2010/08/23/readme-driven-devel...
Work on a product in your spare time. Get involved with the open source tech that your product uses.
At Orange, we strive to make world-class products that deliver the best experience possible to our customers. Except when we feel that someone else is doing it better in which case we strive to eliminate the obviously superior product from our walled garden.

With the launch of our shitty Maps last week, we fell short on this commitment. We are sorry for the frustration this has caused our customers but we are doing everything we can to make shitty Maps better, except to provide you what you want right now, a working map.

We launched shitty Maps initially with the first version of Orange. As time progressed, we wanted to provide our customers with even better shitty Maps including features such as really bad directions, never understands your voice integration, Flyover the wrong location and vector-based maps.

In order to do this, we had to create a new version of shitty Maps from the ground up, and though its not ready for prime time we are so worried about our competition that we dumped them prematurely from our walled garden and forced this abomination on you.

There are already more than 100 million Orange devices using the new shitty Maps, with more and more joining us every day. And you know that this is because we reduced your choice to our inferior product, which is what we have the right to do since we own your phone and you don't.

In just over a week, Orange users with the new shitty Maps have already searched for nearly half a billion locations and some actually did find a few locations. The more our customers use our Maps the sooner we will make another billion dollars and we greatly appreciate the fact you have no real choice now that you have our phone in your pocket.

While we’re improving shitty Maps, you can try alternatives by downloading map apps from the Orange Store, but good luck finding them as we also created a new nightmare in our Apps store that makes replacing our shitty apps more difficult than ever. We know that the huge majority of Orange users won't have a clue as to what we mean by bookmarking, and of course that is just fine with us. Just use our maps anyway, just like we planned.

Everything we do at Orange is aimed at making our products the only product you use. We know that you expect that from us, and we will keep working non-stop until EVERYONE in our walled garden is tired of the BS and gets an Android.
Thankfully, the Hacker News front page doubles as a Google Customer Service Department quite well. We recommend you use inflammatory titles to expedite your case.
"We are extremely sorry for the frustration this has caused", that being them falling short on there standards.

So basically they are sad that there customers don't like the product Apple knew was under par, instead of being sorry for knowing releasing an under par product.

"We are sorry you don't like the product we knew was bad but released anyways"

A band-aid on bad situation made from some high level bad choices. Though for all we know this could be a 100% calculated move (minus the maps icon), but at the end of they day they are still putting there customers below something else(i will not speculate on what there reasoning is).
This is pathetic. I'm surprised no one has hit them up with a false advertising claim over their phone not providing what they wanted (directions, in many cases transit directions)

I've not heard a single person using apple maps say "this is good", every single person states its a downgrade. Apple need to get their act together and realize what they've done is lost a major set of consumer confidence here and should do everything in their power to set the situation right.

I for one was about to do the switch from Android to iphone with the iphone 5 coming out. After seeing apple maps, i've decided that i'll probably just buy the new Nexus when it comes out. Maps are the most important app on my phone besides the dialer and text messaging...not having maps thats anything less than what i've got today is simply not something i'm willing to negotiate.

Google will and should do nothing, this is all completely in their favor at this point. IOS might just have taken its first fatal blow.
And switching to Android wouldn't?
Get involved with your local community. Word of mouth is the best referral system when you're getting started.

Try using your personal network to find a local business / organization that is struggling with some piece of software / website. Or donate some work to a non-profit and ask them to spread your name around. Every successful project should bring you at least two more to work on.
For 99$, I would give this a try
“With the launch of our new Maps last week, we fell short on this commitment. We are extremely sorry for the frustration this has caused our customers and we are doing everything we can to make Maps better.”

That’s a proper apology. No dodging, no sidestepping, no shifting of the blame. We screwed up, we are sorry for the problems that caused, we are doing everything we can to fix this.
"Writing the initial code is likely to be if anything slower in a functional language; the real advantage comes in maintenance."

Definitely disagree with this. As with anything, with practice, you get very fast at writing Haskell code.
the expressive/strong type system and type inference means you'll catch errors early while writing code at a higher/denser level than even today's popular dynamic languages, resulting in a net increase in programming speed (for me).
Reminds me of Osmos. Nice work but you should include instructions.
I know, right? They're about 80% as good as Google maps for me. They do all the same things, but admittedly I haven't done obscure turn by turn (then again, it didn't do turn by turn at all before...).
I wouldn't dismiss these freelancing websites altogether though, it takes a bit to identify potential good clients, a lot of people got burnt by the outsourcing companies and are actually ready to pay sensible rates. I got my current job through one of these sites, first taking on a node.js job and then moving to basically full-time freelancing. I don't make that much as for jobs I got through personal and industry contacts, but the client is pretty much the best I ever got. That kind of freedom and respect (and quickly paid invoice, like 10 minutes after I sent them) is worth its money too.

But else, industry and personal contacts, building up contacts through giving speeches and being a part of the development community (user groups, etc...) works best for me.
Last page.
Not sure where you are located, but most big cities have regular tech networking events, seminars, skillshare classes, etc. The VAST majority of rewarding, quality work I have done freelancing was for real-life people (businesses, many startups, etc) that I met at network events. Get a decent personal business card and make sure you tell people what you are capable of doing, and that you are available for work when you meet them. You will be surprised how many opportunities come out of the woodwork.
I can't compare against iOS 6, because I haven't updated my phone. But I did indeed have Google drop me off in the wrong place several times. I had it send me into the suburbs of Bellevue looking for a Home Depot that didn't exist. Last week it sent me 4 blocks away from the restaurant I was looking for (and told me it was on the wrong side of the road, a common issue with Google Maps).

I still think the new Maps has notable issues from everything I've read, but Google-based Maps was by no means perfect.
Did they accuse you of click fraud? That's what happened to me. Some research uncovered that all it really takes is one person who's angry at you to go on your site and click your ads repeatedly. If you search around, you can find stories of disgruntled readers, angry exes, you name it, and none of them have happy endings.

If you knew the risk in advance, you could set up measures to prevent it, but of course those measures would be in violation of the AdSense TOS.
I noticed a few weeks ago that some of Github's recent blog photos were really big.[1][2][3][4][5] They range from just big to "Are you kidding me? I can watch this slow-loading in real time even with a good connection..." big.

Given how much they know about the web, I'm guessing that it's deliberate, not just some grandparent forgetting to resize a photo before uploading it to the web. Either way, I think it's way too soon to be using full-size photos on the web without resizing them.

[1]: https://sphotos-b.xx.fbcdn.net/hphotos-snc7/326049_101509382...

[2]: https://s3.amazonaws.com/pixelhub-heroku-test/designs/design...

[3]: https://s3.amazonaws.com/pixelhub-heroku-test/designs/design...

[4]: https://a248.e.akamai.net/camo.github.com/859292fb3b177112fe...

[5]: https://a248.e.akamai.net/camo.github.com/352f3e89269c0d18c4...
Sure the problem are real - for other people. But not for me. When I upgraded, I expected maps to suck. To my surprise, moving the map around was smoother, it was easier to read, and the display for directions are better.

I also think that's why Apple released it: there are genuine improvements in some areas, but they underestimated how important the missing features are to some people. For some people, the transit features are the reason to use Maps, so it's obviously inferior for them.
If you're doing web or mobile development or anything that is contracted out regularly, I highly recommend you make relationships with the creative/development agencies in your area. My experience is that the decent ones always have more leads than they can execute on at any given time, which leads to two scenarios:

1) They want to grow, lack full development strength, and will subcontract you to work under their name. The rates aren't as high as you could get on your own, but it's still good pay and you didn't have to go selling. Attend a few meetings, live with a project manager, but work from home and build the relationship.

2) Projects that are too small for them to consider are immediately passed to you (and their other staff). "Sorry, we can't help you with this one, but we can recommend this guy who's done lots of good work for us."
Oh please. An app store is a generic name of a place where you buy apps. And "app" has been around long before there was such a thing as an iAnything.

There aren't really a lot of synonyms for a place where you buy things. Store and marketplace are the two obvious ones.
Volunteering to do some programming for charities and doing some open source work is a great way to make connections that can often lead to freelance work. That's how my freelance business got going. Two of my biggest clients came via the connections I made volunteering for a green energy micro lending charity.

And client relationships that come via connections are often far better and more lucrative than those that come through freelancing websites.
Technological Indoctrination
Apple would be in exactly the same problematic position with Microsoft as they were with Google. Not worth the pain for no gain.
Having some standards and providing a working maps app before release would be my definition of "how to do it", but maybe I'm missing something here.

Obviously Apple knew their solution was shit, but they released it anyway, hoping people wouldn't mind too much. That was their choice and now they have to deal.

This is not dealing.
Did you attempt to assertain if they had or had not in fact liscensed this patent? Let's not make assumptions after all.
Well, nobody is saying that Maps is awful for everybody. A lot of people are, however, saying that Maps is awful for roughly nobody, and that the complainers are either Apple haters, influenced by the media, never actually tried the app, etc.
What tracker was he using? If he was running his own tracker, then this is BS. If he was using someone else's that is typically associated with piracy (TPB) then I would understand Google for taking down his account.

Edit: He is using pirate bay and demonoid. I guess you are the company you keep in this situation. Maybe Google wouldn't have caught on, or would have been more forgiving if the torrent was tracked on the same domain name?
This is somewhat true. An Android app won't install and run on BB10 but developers can repackage an Android app fairly easily and offer it in the BB store.
I wish I was a troll with a law degree.
I rather like this one. Though to be fair, it was probably correct to award it: it's definitely inventive, and I doubt there is prior art.

http://www.google.com/patents/US3216423
Five a Day
I disagree.

PR move wise, they've already won the PR battle. Everybody who owns an iPhone 5 or everyone who has considered buying an iPhone 5 now knows that Google (and now Android) has a superior maps offering. By offering a Google Maps app on the iPhone, it just gives customers one reason less to stick with Android.

It will be hard for Google to prove the anti-competitiveness of the App store. It would be quite interesting though - Android has the ability to use different App stores, while Apple certainly does not. It sounds unfair, but I wonder if a court feels the same way.

Pretty sure Apple will be at a disadvantage for years regardless. They've never been a data company as it is, and there's no reason to believe that they could suddenly go out and put together their own maps like Google has done. Better maps does not necessarily equate to having more usage data either.
+1. If I wanted to rummage through a pile of classes and methods to figure out where to start, I'd just read the code.

I want a conceptual overview, usage examples, and some discussion of edge cases.

I've rabidly documented my Rails authorization library, and I'd attribute most of the attention it's gotten to the documentation.

https://github.com/nathanl/authority
AWS Hosting Guidelines
I spent a lot of the day yesterday doing patent and publication searches and I've come to the conclusion that patents are written both by and for retarded monkeys.
The person you were replying to, however, was not saying that, so trying to make that point in reply to him is a non-sequitur.
I think games are pretty much covered on a Windows machine.
A new way to Sync Google Contacts.
Even better: http://www.google.com/patents/US4022227
Is the implication that Bluestack won't work on Intel chips, if only at a lesser efficiency?
Thank you - this article was a key piece of the puzzle and should certainly temper any severe rage over patent trolling on swings.
Apple Apologizes for Its Maps Problem
To be honest, good documentation is more or less my #1 criteria for choosing which library to use.

Not only is it much easier to work with something that is well documented but I also find as a general rule well documented projects seem to be maintained for a lot longer.