skysight-inc/HackerNews huggingface dataset:
Ask HN: Why is subscription billing hard?
Our company has created a new pricing model which is built around subscriptions. We have been thinking about the best way to bill our customers and report what has happened to accounting.

While doing research I came across Zuora (http://www.zuora.com) which is a SaaS based subscription billing system. It turns out that their product "solves" the whole pipeline (sales -> use -> billing -> accounting) but it is very very expensive.

So my question is, why? I am not at all trying to pick on Zuora. My guess is they have a fantastic product, but I am having trouble justifying the price. Isn't this just a simple rules engine that produces reports?

My guess is that I am falling into the classic blunder that "It's Trivial" (http://www.codinghorror.com/blog/2009/07/code-its-trivial.html). I was hoping someone in the community could enlightenment me on the pitfalls, before I go off and build it myself!
Personally I'm in love with R's data.frame. It allows very concise, robust and elegant manipulation and subsetting of a data set.

I wish every language would have such a built-in object type, I definitely feel its loss when I manipulate data in other languages such as Javascript or Mathematica.
Thank you! Greetings from Aberdeen :)
i expect that's not region sensitive either.
in the UK the BBFC classified Skyrim as a 15.

http://www.bbfc.co.uk/website/Classified.nsf/ClassifiedWorks...

eta:
although that now seems to be merely a historical curiosity, since the BBFC no longer rates games - we use PEGI instead.
Hormonal Hastalıklar
Kenyan and curious, what ideas do you have on how you can help?
Not sure why you're being down voted, the very first sentence in the article is quite a stretching of the truth.
Our first true James Bond villain
I can't edit my comment but edit2:

It is also possible to become an H-1B dependent employer if you have over 15% H-1Bs, which requires you to provide extra attestations for each H-1B employee:

http://www.dol.gov/whd/regs/compliance/FactSheet62/whdfs62C....
Has anyone built something that illustrates Dart's features or made a neat web app with it? Can it handle graceful degradation from running in a browser which natively supports Dart to a browser which requires JS compilation?
Ask HN: Review my startup, mindlog.co
Hi guys, just finished the creation of landing page for a new project of mine, web app MindLog.co. I would love to have your input on it and what you think of the app's idea.

URL: http://mindlog.co

Who I am: I have been reading HackerNews for sometime now but just recently started to post. Not that I didn't want to participate but simply because I didn't really feel like it was my place to do so. I left the web design and development world when I sold my business a couple years back. In the meantime, I became a bean counter(accountant). Which mean, I was pretty much out of the loop of the tech world. Ever since, I really wanted to start something(startup) that could help people and not just crunch numbers at a desk. Its why I started MindLog.co.

My idea behind MindLog.co was to create a mix of pinterest, tumblr with the ease to post without ever needing to leave the website you are currently visiting thanks to a pop-up bookmarklet. Its born from the saying "scratch your own itch". MindLog is perfect for me because it allow me to post links, images, quote and book's notes in a matter of seconds(3 steps at most). My personnal blog is the perfect example, a pinterest but for blogging; only 500 character or less posts. Everything that I really want to remember like; how to, marketing tips, links, etc is there.

P.S. The design is based on the theme crytal from themeforest and the MVP on "Idea to paying customers in 7 weeks: how we did it" from Joel Gascoigne.
Was the $200 spent on Vimeo Pro? This is why I didn't host mine on Vimeo.

https://vimeo.com/help/guidelines

Businesses may not use basic Vimeo or Vimeo Plus accounts to host their videos. Businesses may, however, use a Vimeo PRO account to host their videos so long as they comply with the Vimeo PRO guidelines.
Dieter Rams Principles
The Accessibility API is excluded from the Mac App Store under the new sandboxing rules, for example. Most people won't notice. But it's incredibly inconvenient for those people whose 3rd party accessibility tools give them the ability to use their Mac.
> Microsoft clearly wants to be in the hardware business and to make money this way
> Amazon clearly wants full control over their own OS.

You keep saying things are clear but provide absolutely no proof of this.

What if Amazon doesn't want full control over their own OS, but just wants a good enough OS and hasn't found one yet?

What if Microsoft doesn't really want to be in the tablet hardware business but just wants to give other OEM's a reference design?

Both are just as possible as what you propose.
"The only good argument against the surface right now is pre-existing ecosystems."

It isn't just ecosystems, it is massive mindshare (and keep in mind I say this as someone who is anti-Apple).

For a lot of people I know who don't own tablets yet tablets basically are "iPads", the way web searching is "Googling" or adhesive bandages are "Band-Aids".

"Oh is that a Droid iPad? I've heard of those, but never saw one before".
GSchool - intensive 6 month program turning novices into skilled web developers
The article argues that Metro apps are the future, not desktop apps. If the past is any guide to the future, desktop apps will be unacceptable to consumers in 10 years time and completely unusable in 20 years time (based on the MS-DOS to Windows transition).

Steam and other apps may work fine now, but what happens in 10 years? That is the long-term issue this article is trying to bring up.
It seems like a good idea, but I wonder how actually useful highly specialized programming languages would be. Why?

1) Most data analysis tasks boil down to roughly the same things: accessing the data source --> data cleaning -->simple transformations --> (optional)stats/fitting/ML/specialized procedures-->pretty pictures and reporting.

2) Not everyone wants programming to be the main component of their job.

People who can take advantage of the flexibility that programming offers can usually take advantage of existing technologies. People who don't enjoy coding will always look for of-the-shelf solutions that have pretty GUI's with magic buttons that solve all their problems. I just don't think there is a huge market in between to be filled... in the domains that i've been exposed to anyway.
No - That should be called out as optional.

But the commenters here have added information on creating a better youtube experience.
Did you actually create an account 25 minutes ago solely to post that bit of FUD?
Note, I resubmitted this because I was hoping that it would find http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=850485 for me. But it didn't. (I later found it through my user name.)

I would delete it, but it has been several years, and so it does not seem bad to have the dupe.
Portland, Oregon's Startup Renaissance
How does it feel, Zynga? You do this to all the indie developers everyday
Plans to Digitize Health Records Draw Skepticism
I don't think this has anything to do with directed graphs. The operation looks like this. For nonzero c in C, compute the distance d(a(i+1)/c, Z+iZ) to the nearest Gaussian integer, where a is an integer.

The max distance is A = 1/sqrt(2) so color the point a(1+i)/c proportionally by

(A - d(a(i+1)/c, Z+iZ))/A

I'm taking a liberty with the description, since computing "the percentage of a(i+1)/c's that are Gaussian integers" is open to interpretation, and if taken literally could mean something else entirely, such as computation of the ratio

#(A(c,n)\cap Z+iZ) / n

where

A(c, n) = { a(i+1)/ c : 1 <= a <= n }

which is asking for a proportion products that become Gaussian integers--this is a divisibility test. However, this doesn't show how to vary the brightness of the images.
vigilante experimentation is a good term for it. I don't know, I kind of respect it. I'm doubtful it could have the same level of negative effect as sustained fertilizer runoff, and if does a lot of good (i.e. effectively reduces CO2 and increases salmon numbers) can you really complain?
Caching in theory and practice
Won't compete with iPad on quality. Won't compete with Android on price. Why should anyone buy this?

-Because Microsoft has its slimy tentacles in your corporate IT purchasing process and this is the only tablet they'll buy for you.

-Because it runs the real Microsoft version of Word and Excel and therefore when you share files around the office and they don't show up the same on every machine, you can blame Microsoft instead of catching blame yourself.

-Because Microsoft will pay your company $X0,000 dollars to have you develop a half-baked version of your iOS apps for it.

-Your vision is terrible anyway and you can't even tell that the crappy screen is still a blurry low-res mess.
Optimized rendering of event-dependent documents
Apple’s Retina MacBook Pro, the least repairable, least recyclable computer
In git you can edit the commit content as well retroactively.
>However that's censorship. And it's OK as long as controlled platforms are a minority, but when it becomes a monopolizing problem leaving consumers with no choices left, then it should really be against the law.

I have trouble accepting this argument. Microsoft, Apple, Google, and Amazon are not preventing the production of that content. They're simply refusing to sell it, which is their prerogative.

That's not censorship, at all. It's no different from any of the major big-box chains refusing to sell things because of content.
But it's not established at all that atmospheric CO2 will be significantly reduced, and while a reduction would be good, it has to be weighed against the possible negative effects of the algal bloom: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Algal_bloom
Deming to Devops (Part 1)
"MSFT doesn't have the supply chain magic or economy of scale that Apple has."

I keep seeing the supply chain thing mentioned a lot. Microsoft has been in the hardware game for a long time, and the XBox has had been around long enough and shipped enough volume that MS probably has people just as competent at managing the logistics of consumer device delivery as Apple. Apple might be just a smidge better at but it's like comparing Wal-Mart to Target, Wal-Mart (Apple) maybe the #1 but Target (MS) is a logisitical behemoth in its own right to the point where the supply chain alone does not decide the winner.
Protectionism in terms of differential pricing of goods in many cases to protect local industries and jobs is considered against free trade

-- People have associated liabilities, (human rights, etc) unlike goods (unecumbered economic assets).

That is why there is not free-trade in people. Goods do not come with the need for educating, healthcare, housing etc. The thrust of your argument is correct, in that yes this is a form of protectionism. But its more an issue of political economy than economics in the narrow sense. The narrow sense economic argument is, therefore, arguably misplaced in this context. Its conclusions do not follow.[1]

But it's not a bad question, and certainly one that deserves a good answer and careful consideration at all levels. Hope this helps.

___________________

[1] Think of similar narrow-scope-argument: why don't we buy/sell people like commodities? Instead, we find it politically acceptavle to have a market for ony the labour. Etcs.
I host my current Octopress/Jekyll blog with Appfog and gave it a thorough thrashing with ab [apache bench] and blitz.io, performance has been great. It's easy enough to simply run an `af update` instead of `git push heroku`, in that sense.
Thanks. Fixed the blog and now re-exporting the video.
How we can consumerize health care
I have been holding back on previous stripe topics, as it seemed like every feature or news update apparently had enough HN value, as the crowd displayed by happily discussing the topic. But i must say it is getting out of hand with a stripe update on hn every other day, and sometimes 2 a day. They are doing cool stuff, and in some regard you could call them innovating. But the novelty is wearing off, and I rather read about anything that in some way stimulates the mind.. rather than dulls it. Maybe its just me.
Corporate is a very difficult sell for sure. But they tend to cling to old technology much harder than consumers.
I agree with all of the sentiments in the article, but the one small thing that I do disagree with is the conflation of the word "creative" with what the author seems to indicate are artistic or graphical/visual disciplines.

I believe that all programming, whether or not it's graphical or "artistic" in nature, is creative. Development is just as much a craft as it is a logical discipline. Learning algorithms, data structures, and software engineering techniques is only half the battle. As "coders", we are knowledge workers. Our job is to solve a problem; the discipline of computer programming is nothing more than a tool that we use to solve our problems. And creative thinking can be utilized any time someone needs to solve a problem.

Most truly great programmers and/or computer scientists, at least in my opinion, held on to some level of creativity. Dijkstra never developed a single GUI in his life, but saying that the work he did wasn't "creative" would be insulting. You could say similar things about people such as von Neumann, or even more concrete computer scientists like Kay, Stroustrup, etc.

The idea that creativity is inherently tied to "emotional" pursuits like art, design, music, etc. is a little reductionist. Creativity, like programming, is a tool. It's the ability to enter a creative mindset and use creative thought processes to approach a problem, and it is also a refinable skill and not a trait. Creative thinking is just as approachable and general as critical thinking, but so often people who aren't "artistic" reduce themselves to also being not "creative", and I don't think that's very correct.

One of the best descriptions of creativity I've ever heard was in a talk delivered by John Cleese. If you have 30 minutes, I highly recommend watching it: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VShmtsLhkQg
What rights did you gain under the Obama administration that you would lose under a Romney administration? How would Romney discriminate against you in a way that Obama would not?
The 1954 IBM 704 Scientific Computer
OK, for a less abstract description, the site gives:

"For each complex number c calculate the following: For all gaussian integers g like 1+1i, 2+2i, 3+3i... when calculating g/c which percentage results in a gaussian integer again? The higher the percentage, the lighter the pixel."

So, Imagine you have:

c = a+bi
g = x+xi

Division by complex numbers is simplified with a trick of multiplying both numerator and divisor by the complex conjugate of the divisor, so we compute:-

1 / c = c' / ( c * c' )

And we know that c * c' will always be real rather than complex.

1 / c = (a-bi) / (a^2 + b^2)

Now it's just a case of iterating through the possibilities of g and seeing if g time this value of 1/c produces a gaussian integer again.

x+xi * a-bi = ( x*a - x*b*i^2 ) + i*(x*a - x*b)

= x ( a+b + i(a-b) )

So,

g/c = x [ a+b + i(a-b) ) / (a^2 + b^2) ] where g = x+xi

So for any g = x+xi this will only be a gaussian integer if both:-

(a^2 + b^2) | x*(a+b)
(a^2 + b^2) | x*(a-b)

And the original algorithm is testing all gaussian integers where 0 <= x <= 100

(Probably riddled with mistakes, should really be revising for my final Maths exam tomorrow morning...)
Consider: http://www.apple.com/iphone/

Giant black text: "iPhone 5: The Biggest thing to happen to the iPhone since the iPhone"

Page title: "The thinnest, lightest, fastest iPhone ever" ..but not biggest...

I think it is fair to say that they are using the word "big" to encompass the many changes, not simply to say "it got bigger".
I'm a bit surprised at the negative tone of the articles.

Yes, it's unproven that this will work as a fix for global warming. But what better way to find out than by running a large experiment? (This isn't just some crackpot theory, real scientists have looked into it: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ocean_fertilization)

I've noticed two divergent environmental movements lately. The "do nothing" crowd that doesn't like wind energy because of birds and rejects nuclear because of fallout risks. And the more (in my view) pragmatic crowd that is open to trying new things to solve environmental problems.
The Tao of Surface - Inside Microsoft's First Tablet
So far as maintainable I'd say the internal DSLs I've made in Java as as maintainable as internal DSLs made in other languages -- that is, its very maintainable until you run into some complexity cliff.

When I program Scala or C# I tend to curse type erasure in Java generics, but when I actually program Java the generics system makes me smile. I can very efficiently turn what's in my head into a design and code.

In a language like Haskell whatever you gain from the language you tend to pay back in missing or buggy standard libraries. If I was writing a webapp in any off-brand language, for instance, I wouldn't trust that the urlencode function works correctly until I'd written some test cases.

I'll admit functional Java is a little verbose (can't write a closure in just one line) but the Hotspot compiler is very good at inlining functional code and collecting the garbage from it. I can definitely say that I get much better performance w/ functional Java than I usually see with the Interpreter pattern with two orders of magnitude less code size.
What fraction of hackers uses something other than emacs or vim?
Apparently, it did work in practice for them, starting from the 3rd week or so - most people who wanted one, got it at the official price. The people who wanted one right now paid whatever the scalpers were asking for.

They are optimizing for price=const, which they believe they could support ad-infinitum. Doing what you suggested would cause price fluctuations, if the premium dries up and they can't offer the discount any more.

Sure, there was a short transient period where it didn't work perfectly. But it was short. And now everyone can get one at $35, and would be able to do so in the future as well.
> Personally I'm in love with R's data.frame. It allows very concise, robust and elegant manipulation and subsetting of a data set.

The performance is terrible though. For data of more than ~10,000 observations SQL is much better performance wise, is more robust, and is as good at subsetting. Although it's maybe not as elegant for everyone's definition of elegant.
A country is a community. Multinational companies don't want people to believe that, but it's true. A community is entitled to control its membership.

An H-1B is not just a contract between employer and employee. It is a contract between a foreigner and a community. We the community agree to make that person one of us. To educate his or her children at the public expense. To allow him or her to affect our elections. To protect him or her in case of war. To extend our limited social safety net in case he or she falls on hard times. We should not be strong-armed into taking on these obligations. We need to expand our community, but in an organized way that benefits the whole, not just in whatever way benefits multinational organizations that increasingly seem to see themselves as outside the community.
Potential Threats To Data Backup
New Topsy tool can spot Twitter trends before they blow up
Immutant 0.5.0 Released - an application server for Clojure
Re-Branding the First 40 Presidents
If the practice of ocean fertilization is illegal, how was he hoping to redeem the carbon credits?
Amen on the Nerd Nirvana! :)

Personally I prefer [1] using a subdomain over the bare domain. If your registrar doesn't support www redirection you could always use WWWizer [2].

[1] http://vvv.tobiassjosten.net/internet/using-www-for-your-dom...
[2] http://wwwizer.com/
Dart goes M1
> Has anyone built something that illustrates Dart's features

Take a look at: http://synonym.dartlang.org/

> or made a neat web app with it?

We're getting there. People are starting to build frameworks and libraries, and there are a bunch of sample apps floating around. The language itself is still changing pretty quickly, so it's most amenable to early adopters. As things get more stable, I think we'll start to see more apps.

> Can it handle graceful degradation from running in a browser which natively supports Dart to a browser which requires JS compilation?

Yes. There's a canonical stub .js file that you add a script tag for on your page. That will detect whether or not the browser supports Dart and pull in either the native Dart code or the compiled-to-JS one as appropriate.

With this, you can write an app that any browser can hit and it will do the right thing.
I would suggest you ask someone to help you with the text on your website, preferably a native English speaker. The first thing that struck me on the site was the poor written English.

I mean this in the most polite way. Other than that keep up the good work!
A couple of nits...

Cython is actually what is faster than Julia in Wes' comparison, not Python. Cython looks kinda, sorta like Python, but it is actually a static language with C-like types (but quite different syntax for those types), no polymorphism, and, afaict, ill-defined semantics. The best answer I seem to get about Cython's semantics is that Cython's semantics are whatever it does. I'm not alone in this complaint – Travis Oliphant expressed a similar concern at this year's SciPy (in this panel [http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7i2vhoQY-K4], if I recall correctly), which is part of his motivation to work on Numba [https://github.com/numba/numba].

If you look at the comments on Wes' post, when I used the dot(x,y) function, which ships with Julia and uses a BLAS to compute the inner product just like the fastest "Python" version does, Julia is equally fast. That stands to reason – they're both just calling a BLAS.

Finally, that blog post is months old – since then Julia passed the milestone of being no slower than 2x C++ on its microbenchmarks suite [http://julialang.org/]. That's not a guarantee that all code is that fast, but most things we see can be pretty easily tweaked to get there (counterintuitively for those coming from Matlab, Python or R, usually by devectorizing the code rather than vectorizing it). And of course, there's a lot of room for improving Julia's performance, the compiler is still quite young and there are many optimizations that we haven't implemented. Basically, there's nothing but work standing in the way of reaching C or Fortran's speed across the board.
Official Link:
http://news.dartlang.org/2012/10/dart-m1-release.html
it's easier to break into algorithmic trading because you can trade on your own account

i got interested in financial semantics lately and was amazed to find how many people are doing algorithmic trading with accounts anywhere from $10k to a few mil. in fact i know of many startups developing products and services aimed at such people.

if you read the MSM you'd think it's all about HFT and big players, but I think algorithmic trading today is a lot like day trading was in the late 90's.
I think the most simple example is software. I don't know about Windows 7, but I know Windows Vista was 1/4th the price in China as it was in the US.

Prescription medications in other countries often cost far lower than in the US: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Prescription_drug_prices_in_the....

A coke in India costs half the price as it does in the US.
Not after a small function change. See Wes' remarks in comments: http://wesmckinney.com/blog/?p=475#comment-521757980
With Profits Dropping, High-Speed Trading Cools Down
I would love to see something similar for any other politician. It's a great piece of digital satire.