skysight-inc/HackerNews huggingface dataset:
When it comes to open source work, which I mostly do on my own, limited time and don't get paid for, I have a choice. I can spend time writing code or writing documentation. The former I enjoy very much, the latter I don't like at all. Guess which I am going to pick.

The times when I've actually ended up writing some docs, I don't think anyone has ever read them. And writing the docs is just the beginning, they have to be maintained too. Out of date docs are perhaps worse than no docs at all.

I don't read docs either, because they tend to be out of date. Formal specifications are an exception. But when it comes to open source, I just tend to read the source because it's never out of date and tells the whole story. What was obvious to writer of the doc isn't obvious to me and vice versa.

The first person who comes to me asking for documentation to my projects volunteers to write them, like it or not.
I love the fact that this same MS patent also references "Method of exercising a cat" http://www.google.co.uk/patents/US5443036.
how about this one as well http://www.google.co.uk/patents/US6004596
That C&D was sent years not months ago. It doesn't mean that they can't use it only that they need to provide it as a separate package.
Page and Brin started work on BackRub in 1996, and it was publically usable very early on. http://alpha.google.com/ was launched in 1997.

http://web.archive.org/web/19990125084553/alpha.google.com/
That's not quite right. A pull quote can also simply refer to an excerpt "pulled" out of the article text. Google it.
I do not know enough about this to be for or against it. But as a recent college grad it leaves me with two obvious questions.

1. This litigation doesn't address the issue of overpriced textbox, simply bypasses it all together. Is there anyone out there saying that the current selection of textbooks is bad in some way other then there price? I find it astounding that they would pass litigation in an attempt bypassing a whole industry instead of actually addressing the issue.

2. Why can these textbooks be made without this ligation?
For a non-bullshit advertising provider I highly recommend http://www.projectwonderful.com/

You create an ad box with them, they give you a snippet to past anywhere on your site. People bid a-la eBay for any amount of time they want to display an ad on that box and you rake in money.

You can then transfer that money via Bank or Paypal, couldn't be simpler and it has gasp customer service!

Fuck Google.
This is a really great metaphor for starting companies in winner take all markets.

It

Takes a combination of luck and skill

Speed through quick iteration to out maneuver and eventually devour the big guys

Frequent failures due to bad starting conditions

Partnering with the right people early on is vital

Later on you need your acquisitions to be large enough to move the needle

Sometimes there is really no way to oust the established player in a mature market from a small players perspective

I think maybe some signs of aging or negatory effects of size would be cool to add in.

Cool concept!
It seems Google is becoming dead serious about including the "copyright infringement" factor in their algorithms. I can only see this causing more and more PR problems for Google down the line.
Salesforce.com Announces New Features At Dreamforce
As far as I'm aware BB10 is compatible with a large subset of Android applications.
I looked at costs of filing a patent awhile back. Seems relatively cheap to file, if you do as much work yourself as possible, however the maintenance fees they require you to pay at 3.5 yrs, 7.5 yrs, and 11.5 yrs, to keep the patent in effect, get progressively steeper.

I wonder if this guy has paid any of the maintenance fees?
To be fair, the patent was filed by a five year old whose patent-attorney father was trying to educate on how the patent process works. http://www.nytimes.com/2002/05/13/business/patents-patent-of... Perhaps he taught his son even more than he expected.
Probably a good example for "how to scale" (a corporation) ... Apparently that's the kind of tradeoffs one has to accept in order to become a behemoth like Google.
How to Go for Apache Mod_Rewrite and SEO for phpBB Forums
RIM tried to let Android apps run on BB. They had a lot of restrictions though, and I think the project ended up a flop. Not sure, though, is it still active? They had a lot a restrictions on which apps could be run, which Android features could be used, etc, IIRC.
Yes, this. I'm looking at you, freedesktop.org... PulseAudio documentation is poor. Considering it doesn't really work out of the box on half the systems out there that's pretty bad. fontconfig docs are some of the worst I've seen in a long time. In general, I feel dizzy when I find a link with "freedesktop.org" in it labeled "docs"...

There are plenty of other examples. Seriously, documentation is extremely important. Especially if you're relying on config files, document them properly.
Also seems to reference 'Method of exercising a cat', http://www.google.co.uk/patents/US5443036
And please, run your source through a tool like doxygen for me to get a better understanding of how your software is built and designed. I've been advising a startup that is facing issues with documentation not being available for the platform they chose to use. The platform looks good, and the code is fairly readable, but there is no documentation. To complicate things, the platform is under active development and things change weekly (if not daily). The solution? The startup is looking to have their application written in another platform. All we need is for you to explain how stuff works in a language that even a grilled cheese sandwich will understand.
Actually I used to work for that Finnish company.

But here in Germany we have good unions that are able to say _stop_.

So those blood-baths had limited extent here.
You can run the source through one of those automated documentation tools like doxygen. That does make a big difference.
Or maybe not so much a joke as an absurdity used to prove a point? I actually wish there were more patents like this as it would lead to tighter examination.

I also don't think it's an accident that the inventor and filing attorney have the same last name. It's hard to justify the cost of doing this unless you can get the lawyer for free. It's not the filing fees that are expensive so much as the rest of the process.
Those monsters. Have they no sense of the society they are spitting on.

As you said though, this really is the perfect example of what's wrong with the patent system. There needs to be an overhaul of what can be patented and how to go about it, but the companies with the influence to do so have no real incentive to do so, as most of them own the patents that they need.
The Uncountability of the Unit Interval
It's part of magazines, practically any article over 2 or 3 pages will have them.
Any pointers on how to make it easier to wtfm?
If anyone out there actually enjoys writing documentation I'd be willing to pay for some help and guidance on a rather large commercial open source project that is in need of some tlc regarding documentation
I couldn't agree more. The lack of good documentation is a plague which is not emphasized quite enough. To me it is as (or even more) important than writing tests: debugging code is easy in comparison to figuring out what it is supposed to do in the first place.
Apple App Store: "2.6 Apps that are “beta”, “demo”, “trial”, or “test” versions will be rejected."

Minecraft is in the App store.
GPUs win on hashes per second per dollar. FPGAs win on hashes per joule.

https://en.bitcoin.it/wiki/Mining_hardware_comparison
Has nobody noticed there is no issue date? You can file any patent you want, but if it's actually issued, that's another problem.
It's also expired due to nonpayment of fees.
The Stargate Switch
Why do all these articles only mention Windows 8? I believe AMD said it works on Windows 7, too. Does it make the headline more compelling if it just says Windows 8?

Also, I imagine that if this is happening, most developers who already have an Android app won't bother to create a Windows 8 one, too.
Most interesting thing about this: Tim Cook explicitly pointing to other map services inside the App Store and outside of it tells me that if and when Google decides to submit a map app, it won’t be rejected.
What all these announcements forget to mention, is that they only work with DalvikVM pure applications.

NDK based applicatons need to be recompiled, as any native code language making use of it. So forget about most games.
If only it were that easy to create massively successful software.
Tvshowsapp: Easiest way to download your favorite shows automatically..shhh
The actual letter: http://www.apple.com/letter-from-tim-cook-on-maps/
Better prepare yourself, on the left hand side there is in-fact an issue date, "Issue date: 9 Apr 2002" which is beneath the filing date "Filing date: 17 Nov 2000"
I forgive your pedantry, and I consider what said to be very constructive, thank you.

I respect your opinion; but I really disagree, I believe "optimal" is a word that is only defined by relativity.

One person can be more optimal at doing a job than another, one tool can optimize your website better than another. You can be really far from optimal, or really close.. Or somewhere in between?

"There are not degrees of optimality, though things can be nearer or farther from optimal. "-- Well they can be degrees of near or far.. To me that is "degrees of optimality".

I'd love to continue talking with you about this outside of HN, if you want to. Coeyman at gmail.com
a) Far too difficult
b) Addictive
c) Ouch, my fingers.
Tobacco Control Laws Stricter, Pakistan News
Tobacco Control Laws Stricter, Pakistan News
I hope to eventually work for myself, and be able to take whatever title I see fit.
RuPy Conference: Early Birds tickets available
There are actually many open-source projects that have excellent documentation and there are many that don't have documentation at all. I think there's actually a shortage of projects with simply adequate documentation.

Many open-source projects also allow you to contribute to the documentation, so I don't think you should criticize projects you're actually using but rather that you should help maintain the documentation (even if it's just bug reports).

If you have an open-source project with very few users, you'll often find that you can't get traction simply because when people can't figure out how to use your software, they'll go elsewhere. Want fame and (maybe) fortune? Make your project useable.
Failed on drunken cat http://oi48.tinypic.com/1e9quq.jpg
At first I thought "Oh wow, video lectures a la Coursera, awesome", unfortunately these are just written materials.

I'm a little surprised at how little love FP gets at the Courseras, EDXs and Udacities of the world. The only thing that's going on at the moment is Martin Odersky's FP principles in Scala.
Of course I haven't missed the point. You did :)

You can nitpick as much as you want, but for a lot of applications it's perfectly OK to sum up the frequencies. A job that can be spread over 8 cores will be executed at about the same time as it would execute on a single core at 8x the frequency
That's a very small effect. A professor doesn't make much money off of a single textbook- selling to one class wouldn't be worth the trouble of writing. Even revision (working with the editor) is aggravating. And if you have co-authors? Forget it.

Writing the text book is an act of love and/or vanity. Only if your textbook becomes a "standard" (Halliday/Resnick, etc.) does it provide direct financial rewards.

EDIT: I agree with you about the 3-year cycle, but that's not the authors' doing, it's the publishers'. That's their business model.
I think this could help you: http://higherorderfun.com/blog/2012/05/20/the-guide-to-imple...
It's not the idea of shipping in six months, it's the idea of shipping something (in six months0 that will be adopted by millions of users.

We don't have the full context of her statement, and I'm guessing (hoping) that she isn't expecting version 1 to be a runaway success, but will allow the team to continue iterating and pivoting, if necessary, before making the determination of whether the project was worthwhile.
This sorely needs some instructions. Tapping around the page produces no obvious results.
Mathematical analysis of Nethack's rnz() random number generator
The Parallella project will make parallel computing accessible to everyone.

I think their marketing is a bit off on this one. Does everyone actually need parallel computing on this scale? I don't think so. Those who do need it likely already have CUDA running on GPGPUs. Not that I'm implying stifle innovation but the crowd they're marketing to seems to be way off base.
The copypasta crowd was alive and well back in the old days. I got my junior college programming degree in 1985. Grading of programs was based on correct output (still relevant today) and number of compiles. Yes, you could get it 100% right but fail anyway if you took more than 5 compiles. No penalty for printing, though, so desk-checking of listings was our main activity. Once you marked up a listing and made your changes (sometimes via terminal, sometimes via punched card) you tossed the old listing. The folks who couldn't grasp the concepts would grab listings out of the trash and pirate code from them. Good programmers kept close track of their punched card decks too--the pirates would happily swipe an unguarded deck.
This should be view on the same grounds as the scolding from Jobs to the MobileMe group when it launched.

The alternatives are almost the same as when it launched. Even having those. How many are having real problems or just hating because is the new fad?
Sure it is. You just need to realize that a launch isn't a singular, end-all event.

Unless you're building a marketplace, promote constantly. Don't worry about your launch day, have thousands of little launches.

When I launched Planscope, I had a strong announcement list in place. Had I not, it would have been weak. But I kept blogging and talking about the product, and a slow, linear (profitable) growth is the result.
Amazon seeks to throw out Apple 'app store' claim
Pathetic. Actual way to say "sorry" is to approve Google Maps native app, this could have a real impact in the happiness of their customers. My 4s is the latest Apple phone for me, unless they change attitude (see for example allow old phones with enough capabilities to use the latest features, see Siri and iPhone 4 for a straightforward example).

Edit: apparently it was just a rumor, however it is not the first time that Google submits an app that is delayed or denied from Apple, so I don't understand all this downvote-rage.
It's been a while since Albert Einstein worked in the patent office, eh?
I agree. My rule of thumb is that you need to shrink a project down into 3 month deliverables. If you aren't going to deliver something that stands alone and is useful in 3 months, then don't bother as the world will likely change before you finish. I realize that some big projects and products take much longer than 3 months start-to-finish but there should always be 100% useful milestones every 3 months.
Beacon - Covert C2 for Penetration Testers
Passive-aggressive gesture by the engineers after being strong-armed into working through the application?
That was what I was thinking. Hopefully he won't change his mind by the time Google launches it. Now let's wish for Apple to majorly screw up their next version of Safari, too ;)
Tim Cook is the man. He owed up to Apple's clear failure.
The statement reads like a balanced and fair apology - should put a damper on the AppleMap-gate.
Oh and one more thing, well a few actually

Im sorry for the shitty podcast App that randomly starts playing when you dont want it to

Im sorry for the really shitty battery life on your 6 month old 4s

Im sorry for the frustrating internet crashing which causes you to have to turn your phone off and on, which you never had to do until the day you upgraded to iOS6
Working on a social event discovery application
Well actually regardless of that, Apple is a brand that people trust, and of course there are times that Apple might fail and we criticize because we trust they can do a better job.

To me it's much better that "this product is shit" than "ah it's apple, what do you expect?".
The weirdest thing about that is Bing app and Google in safari crash so much. Did nobody think to test plan B and get some workarounds in place?
I was the programmer before "us" and I was not better but I'm better now.
I don't really care about Karma on this site (mine or other people's). If I did I certainly would have checked this comment earlier ;)

If people post for Karma instead of for content, IMHO it is their problem. It won't make the site much better, but it won't make it much worse, either.

"Shame on you" was my way of saying "who cares?".
API documentation can be generated from the source code with tools like doxygen. For everything else there's the standard toolchain consisting of a good editor and source control. Writing documentation is a chore but it's a very important aspect nevertheless.
As an Android user, I've used NFC primarily to share apps with other users. I just open the app, tap phones, and presto they've got the Play Store open with the app.
Yes, but there is no Google Maps native app yet

Google still hasn't submitted it
> "approve Google Maps native app"

Has Google confirmed that they have submitted a native maps app? I'd be interested in reading more about this.
Not to mention, letting go of some early partnerships that aren't keeping up, of which may even be detrimental to a competitor.
>Pathetic. Actual way to say "sorry" is to approve Google Maps native app

Google hasn't submitted a native app. If they did there is no reason why it wouldn't be approved.

(Three of us said this at the same time. When I posted there were no other comments, sorry).
Relying on someone else's platform for a core feature continues to be a bad idea. Being the richest company on the planet doesn't change that, at least when the someone else is too big (or unwilling) to be bought.
I didn't read the quote that way and don't think it's unreasonable to launch an MVP in six months. The other two criteria are business cases against starting and are used to decide which projects should proceed towards their MVPs.

When Google launches a beta (or even alpha), they watch for adoption and "hockey stick" growth. If a project gains traction, the MVP will be augmented with features during the 2-3 years it takes to reach 100M users or $100M.
It's not meant to be easy, and it never will be, but it has to be the goal.

If you want to make niche software, Yahoo is not the place to go it, anymore than Unilever is the place for people who want to make small amounts of high qualty hand made soaps.
I found the FreeSWITCH book very helpful.
There's a scroll bar inside the nested div on the homepage (latest FF).

Really takes away from the design.
I never ever thought I'd live to see the day that Apple would admit let alone apologise for making an obvious mistake (antenna gate anyone?) - it's good to see Tim Cook is human and isn't afraid to admit Apple screwed up (something Apple while under the helm of Jobs didn't really do). Good on him, it must have been hard for Cook to suggest using the Bing app or Google Maps mobile site.
Probably trying to bypass Texas, which usually decides text book standards based on market consumption.

Not sure how subsidies are going to make anything "better". I would think it would be a way for a lot of low quality producers to flood the market. Now, rather than competitive pressure potentially keeping quality in place, the state will need to provide oversight functions, either in awarding subsidies, or in mandating (and deciding) what goes into the textbooks, either of which will be another great place for patronage jobs.
Thank you. Here is the HN post linking to the actual letter: http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=4585223
Wasn't there this big giant thing in the 90's where we decided that Microsoft did have to let other people develop for their OS?
Market knowledge is gained by hitting the streets and knowing which buildings are decent deals. 50% of the time, the renter has a special situation - bad credit, international, needs a guarantor, etc and brokers have to know the buildings and which are flexible. When you go to a broker and tell them you are looking for a $3500 Convertible 2 bed in Murray Hill, they are going to rattle off 5 buildings that have availability. If everybody could do that, there wouldn't be a market for brokers (see lawyers, consultants and just about any other service industry for a comparable).

Most brokers don't make exorbitant six figure salaries, which is why the turnover in the industry is close to 80%. In fact, most make about $40k and leave the industry soon after they enter. Only the top 5% of brokers in NYC are making six figures. Brokers are certainly compensated for the low hit rate, just as bankers are as well. This may be a controversial comparison, but in both industries the professionals work on a success-based transaction fee with a very low probability of success.
Perhaps that's why he pointed them out. ;)
if and when Google decides to submit a map app, it won’t be rejected.

Wouldn't it be phenominally stupid for Apple to not allow a Google Maps app for iOS? I mean that's publicity for Google right there. "Apple doesn't want you to have as good maps as you used to have" etc
> The honest truth is that if you don't like it, and it's that important to you, then consider creating your own.

That's a pretty good come back that you have here.
> The Kickstarter page went live today. A pledge of $99 guarantees supporters a 16-core board by May 2013, while a pledge of $499 guarantees delivery by February. The current hardware is in the prototype phase.

sigh There is no guarantee on Kickstarters.
They're still relying on TomTom for this core feature (although less so than they relied on Google).

I think the message is that relying on a competitor's platform for a core feature is a bad idea.
I've wasted hundreds of hours dealing with piss-poor or no documentation, reading/debugging code, searching sites and forums just to find the magical combo of steps that get a application to build correctly or an LED to blink.

I don't have unlimited time to figure out your code, API and lack of documents. I would rather deal with OSS or commercial software that respects me.
Have you seen this patent on 'refreshing a bread product by heating ...':

http://www.google.com/patents/US6080436?hl=en
They did hold up Google Voice forever.
Most interesting thing about this: ... when { a competitor } decides to submit { something better }, it won’t be rejected.

This is why closed platforms are bad. If you aren't happy with the vendors supplied solution, you should be free to replace it with something which works better for you.

Here Apple customers are sitting, hoping and waiting, for a competitor to come up with a solution which isn't fundamentally broken, and hoping that Apple wont block the competitor in offering them this better solution.

They have to hope Apple wont block a better solution. I find that "interesting" to say the least. And I wont buy into it.
U.S. White House website now on IPv6
No, in fact they have denied it.
Thanks! I'd love it if HN had some mechanism to suggest changing the link to the original source rather than these sorts of worthless click-through / quoted articles.
That approach will also make their acquisition or acqui-hire decisions easier. Based on recent press, they are supposedly setting aside a portion of their Alibaba proceeds for M&A. "Can we build this in 6 mos? No? Let's go ahead and buy then."