skysight-inc/HackerNews huggingface dataset:
>> I (and I'm sure a large majority of Instagram users) am pretty much instantly put off by ads. Especially in-app or in-feed apps. Any ad space sold on my screen is pretty much money wasted.

Why don't you like them? Aren't they better than spammy banners? Or even worse-- the interstitials where you have to watch ad for few seconds compulsorily!

All the promoted content in feeds (like promoted tweets) has clearly marked as an ad and they provide consistent UX with rest of application. So I'm curious to know what's the gripe?
Litigation is, by design, the way to challenge most government action.

This is a big difference, and is even used within government, for example when a state sues the federal government to challenge a law. For Constitutional things that is true in any country with a federalist system, since if a state/province argues the national government overstepped its authority, some kind of constitutional court needs to resolve the dispute. But the U.S. uses it even in statutory disputes. Congress will pass a fairly general law, delegate enforcement to bodies such as the EPA, and then you have years of litigation between the EPA, a state, and maybe even a municipality, over things such as new transit systems. In many other countries, even large ones, this is done more centrally. For example, if Paris decides to build a new line on the Paris metro, it will present a proposal to the national legislature, which will (if it agrees) pass a law specifically authorizing the construction of that line. After that happens, the line expansion becomes definitionally legal: the national parliament has passed a law authorizing it, which supersedes any previous laws, except for the constitution itself. So there is no grounds for anyone to sue to block the line on the basis of other laws (environmental laws, noise ordinances, etc.), since the legislature is presumed to have already weighed all those factors in passing the law authorizing the metro expansion. The U.S. Congress instead prefers to pass general guidelines and leave it up to the courts to decide whether a particular metro line follows those guidelines or not.
I think the reason it hasn't become more of an issue for me is that I use more Engine Yard and VPS than Heroku.
Right, fair enough. Stackoverflow used to add in a nofollow to all links posted on their site. I think they have removed it now for users of a certain rep.

If your site is small, then just moderate the comments yourself. If there are not that many then it will not take much time!
The SNR was way higher in 1998.
Google Apps/Gmail incident report for December 10th outage
Thank you for sharing and my deepest sympathy.
I think the issue is that it's highly environment-specific and there's no single best practice aside from general principles like "don't store passwords in your repo".
Code Hero: The dangers of a Kickstarter success story
old news

http://blog.pasker.net/2008/06/16/you-might-need-messaging-i...
FYI, it is not authentic, and Indiana Jones is a fictional character.
THIS. The problem lies with reporters lacking the basic econmic and statistical background to either report the news and/or challange others they are interviewing.

We are often surrounded by "armchair specialists" who know little about what they are talking about, yet carry large opinions about said topic. I'm all for constructive discourse, but that seems like a rare thing when talking about hot topics.
> Overly short methods can make code much harder to read and follow and actually increase complexity, because now there are many more entry points.

Ideally there wouldn't be any more entry points. If we create multiple short well-named private methods they should make it easier to follow your code. Side benefit of well-named methods is they can act as simple documentation for readers.

> Case statements can be a bad code smell, just as is_a?(...), but not in every situation.

More often than not when doing a code review a case statement will catch my eye. Often they are OK, but more often than not they can be avoided.

> Read "Design Patterns" by the GoF and "Refactoring" by Martin Fowler also.

So important to read these. They are great for all developers. The idea behind Ruby Science is to show how to use these techniques in a Ruby on Rails application. With real code, and real refactoring (along with code, and a history of git Commits to show the exact changes we're making).
they didn't want to unfairly disadvantage people who followed their instructions.

I can see the point if they were running the section process for a government department, lets say homeland security.

But MBA programs rarely promote themselves as trying to produce the most conformist, bureaucratic-procedure loving graduates.
Aereo licenses Bloomberg TV as first cable station
But we're talking about the new Google Maps app for iOS, which is not the same as Google Maps for Android (its a newer ground-up design with different features.)
That's interesting that Apple Maps caches a much larger area. That would be worth considering if the data is any good. A larger cache and faster rendering of crap data just means the crap stinks that much more. When Apple's data gets better, then this will be more awesome.

I've been getting around the "no network" issue by using the Garmin app anyways.

Unfortunately, the better integration of Apple's app is something I have not figured a work around. Other than getting an Android phone, I mean.
I searched HN for this story and was surprised to not find it, so I submitted it myself. It was dead within an hour.

And really, thinking about it now, it probably deserved to die, just as the Apple story probably deserved to die. The only real lesson from these stories is that you can't blindly follow your GPS… and everyone should've already known that. But all that did get hashed out in the Apple thread and really doesn't need a rehash so soon after the first story.

So… is the missing story the result of pro-Google/anti-Apple bias? It certainly could be, but I can't say that's the only plausible explanation.
What's the difference between pivoting and evolving? Does it have to do with the goals of the company changing, or something else?
Why not wireless?
> Your head is firmly embedded in the sand my friend.

I could say the same...
> Currently a search for GTA vice city [2] places the actual game in third place behind other related apps.

Looks like that's already changed in the last 3 hours. Now shows up in first place for me.

Third place is currently some ripoff scam app, which is another problem. (Is there any way to report clear ripoff/spam apps from the web storefront? Had to into Google Play to report "objectionable content", which was the closest I could find to a fraud report.)
My mistake we are using PBKDF2 already on both iOS and Android.

One of the developers added PBKDF2 while doing the implementation. I didn't know exactly how they had implemented the encryption - so I asked to clarify.

So to be completely clear:

1. We use a 256 bit key derived using a salt and PBKDF2.

2. AES is used in CBC mode with a different IV for each account.

3. The key is store on the cellphone only and is never transmitted
There are a lot of women out there who greatly desire to be a stay at home mom and in this way, help raise a family. They are out there, you just have to look :) I waited and found a lady who greatly desired this kind of lifestyle and it is working out fabulously for us.
I Think I’ll Just Calculate the Product, Thanks
3D chess based on Photon and Chess.js
You clearly don't buy your own gas, food, or clothes.
I, for one, think it's delightful that more people are getting to understand the vagaries of product development from an investment standpoint. The more people experience the pain, hopefully the less broken things will become.
Backbone.js 0.9.9 Released
This was only a preliminary office action. Apple can still appeal and modify the claims of the patent to make it more acceptable. There is a chance that the patent will survive, potentially with stronger claims that Apple can use against others.

It won't be over for at least several months.
Users can download and install native apps, written in C/C++ (or even assembler) which can access the OS with impunity. Given that, I'm not seeing how exposing more OS level functionality up through the browser is such a big deal.

And some low level functionality is crucial (or at least damn important) for certain types of apps. What sounds like a "bad idea" to me, is to indiscriminately rule out entire classes of applications because something bad might happen.
How about regulations in the hotel business are about collecting extra property taxes revenue not managing the risk profile of hotel patrons.
EDIT : They are MOSTLY, almost exclusively concerned with raising extra-taxes, in a few cases they also deal with environmental risk.

Are you arguing my point for me ? That's exactly what I'm saying, Zoning (for hotels) is about taxes, not some imagined increased safety risk to be managed due to a high presence of transient residents
Switching to using a fountain pen has made my left-handed writing much better, mostly because I have to slow down and think about how I put the pen to paper, rather than just scrawl it along.

Lamy do left-handed nibs which help a lot. I'm very happy with my Lamy Safari, but I also have a Schneider Base which works well.
Prior to Deng Xiaopeng's reforms in the early 80's, the Chinese economy was mired in central planning and excessive bureaucracy. People were literally starving and had been for decades; there was no hope for anything better in life.

And then China opened its doors to foreign direct investment, the government relaxed its grip on the economy and declared the quest for riches to be a glorious endeavor rather than a shameful one, and almost instantaneously, the Chinese economy began growing. Thirty years later, China has gone from an economic disaster to being the second largest economy in the world, and despite its burgeoning size, it is still growing rapidly today. In the process, literally hundreds of millions of people have been lifted out of abject poverty, and the Chinese people are hopeful of the future again.

It was not the government that did this; it was globalization, it was capitalism, it was the desire to make a profit. And of course, there were naysayers the entire way whining about sweatshops and the loss of American jobs, but meanwhile, poor Chinese people were happily migrating from the farms to work for what we considered a pittance, but for them, it was a godsend, and over the years, their wages have risen along with China's per capita income. Today, they are among the highest paid workers in the third world, and that trend continues.

The same cycle has played out in numerous countries around the world: abandon communism, embrace capitalism, experience rapid economic growth.

If you cannot see for yourself that capitalism is what has driven this explosion of economic activity around the globe, then you, well... Perhaps the problem is not that our argument is too simplistic, but that yours is too complex.

Missing the forest for the trees comes to mind.
you could spin it whatever way you want until the cows come home, but the data does show that on face value Entities in the US are more prolific with litigation than Entities in other nations.

Saying that 2 multi-nationals are going to duke it out in the States over the rest of the world may or may not be true - (Are a major percentage of multi-nationals headquartered in the US? If they are lodging action in the US, is it because it is easier?)

But I would tend to think that 300 Million americans and their individual actions are going to be greatly more influential on the total case load and per capita case load in the US than the approximately 70,000 multinational companies - which would be like a drop in the ocean against the individual litigations.
Labels basically just allow for some flexibility in building your own email management system within an email application. People use labels in so many different ways. I see them used in some fairly creative way and I think that what is happening is essentially hacking an old system. There's probably some "pave the cow paths" type stuff that can be done with people are using these things. I think that's kind of what Mailbox is doing. Marking something to essentially deal with it later is pretty much labeling it with a "do later" (or whatever) label in a current email system. They're just making the act of adding that "label" more simple.

The stuff that gets me excited is the more smart, automated, learning management. Alto is messing with some pretty cool stuff in that area. Just the simple act of automatically bunching emails without me intervening is a really compelling feature I think. It sort of takes away the concept of one big inbox. That automatic separate leads to all sorts of possibilites from just personal organization to analyzing certain "stacks" (to use an Alto term). I really don't know is best, but I can say that I've enjoyed that feature of Alto quite a lot.

Overall, I love seeing new takes on how to deal with email. There's certainly room for improvement and certainly some problems that can be solved. Keep the new ideas comin'!
Hbase Hive Integration and Zookeeper Configuration
There isn't, it's just that one is a buzzword and the other is what normal successful companies do.
Moving Away From Noir
I am not claiming that austrians think markets are perfect. I did say, that austrians believe that markets produce optimal outcomes, compared to other possible organization structures. ( So quite exactly what you say in your last paragraph.)
All itunes tracks are drm free. And you can upgrade any drm tracks for $0.30c a track. Basically the difference that the labels wanted for everything to be $1.29 versus $0.99 which Apple wanted things to stay at.

This has been true since 2009 for the record.
ps we're very actively hiring! If you're interested, send me an email at max@transcriptic.com! More info here: https://www.transcriptic.com/about/jobs
That's quite possibly true, but doesn't affect the fact that there ToS has a pay money now for stuff later model, and that people who have paid money have a legitimate expectation to get their stuff or a refund.
How to Thank a Customer
Can you not share location? Or do you just miss the graphical touch of dropping pins?
Backbone 0.9.9 released
Hooray! Now I have one less thing to lose by leaving Kansas City!

RE: http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=4917132 (from today)
I hope you don't feel bad for not writing a blog post. It is not a requirement at all.
Dropbox (YC S07) Acquires Audiogalaxy
In the case of purely incidental rewards, the project creator ought to provide the rewards independently of the success of the project, and so as close as practical to the date originally estimated: otherwise, given the KS terms of service -- which require fulfillment or a refund, and require a good faith effort to meet the estimated date -- the situation is pretty much exactly analogous, from a legal perspective, to purchasing a T-shirt for $1000 and the seller failing to ship.
Zoning regulations are not designed for taxes.

[EDit] I wouldn't use the language "risk profile", but the zoning laws are clearly about the use of the property.

As far as the taxes, I work in land development and have studied planning. Taxes may be an ancillary effect of zoning but they are by no means a primary one.
I don't believe he said that the cost of using a lawyer should become more expensive, did he?

All I read is that if they did become more expensive, people would work out other ways to get things done.
Yes, it's also a strong possibility that Facebook didn't buy Instagram for its users, but bought Instagram simply because they didn't want to compete against Instagram.
I like holo, but people definitely go way too overboard in demanding that all apps use it. wanting android apps that exist only as android apps to be holo-style is fine, but something like facebook that has their own identity above and beyond the android app should style their apps to fit in with their own identity first, and making them fit the platform should be a secondary concern. I think that facebook has done a good job of balancing the two.
There is a common law country without juries: South Africa.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jury_trial#South_Africa
They're going to reveal their pivot in 2013. No need for anyone else to waste time reading to the bottom to find that out, like I did.
> it should be a requirement to produce a detailed description of the method by which the desired result is achieved

In theory, that's how it is. In order to receive a patent, you must first "reduce it to practice". That doesn't mean you have to build it yourself, but it does mean that you have to describe it in sufficient enough detail that a person of "ordinary skill in the art" should be able to actually build it.

In practice, that doesn't happen. Part of that is that a lot of really general patents got through in the 90s, as the article states. Another part is that patents are written in such thick legalese that you almost need formal education just to make sense of the language, and most people in software won't even bother.
Wow, I had forgotten in all of this that the original app was written by Apple. So going back to the original comment of being a "win for Apple"- this does seem to have been an end-around past the licensing issue, but not much of a "win" for Apple. Google gets kicked out of the default app and launches a third-part app in probably the best possible way for them though.
I've been moderately successful with niche website tools and SaaS products. I agree with HeyLaughingBoy in a sense–most of the things I've done that have generated revenue were "accidental" in the sense that a person or problem in the niche came to me. When I go looking for a startup, they usually crash and burn.

I'm reminded of Paul G's interview with Zuck at Startup School where he said (more or less) "I wish more startups started the founders".

I would start by (a) putting an ad in the jobs section of craigslist and asking for owner/manager types to do some interviewing/beta testing. Many see it as a cool opportunity and will sit down and tell you their problems. Then, (b) take 2 days off and go talk to owner/manager types at local businesses in your town. Make sure to visit during slow times (don't go to a restaurant at 7pm on Friday or a bank on the 1st of the month).

Now that I have that out of the way, here are actual ideas I think could work because I've heard people complain about them:

Weekly schedule manager: I personally help a few local gyms and churches manage web stuff. Every day they field phone calls that ask "What time is yoga tonight?" or "What time are your Sunday services?". Now, imagine if they could manage that info in one place and then embed it in their website, post on their Facebook page, print it, embed it in a mobile or native app, or have an automatic voice/text line (Twilio).

Niche SEO: we do some SEO work for wedding vendors, but I think there's a need for other segments too. Basically, any business that is going to get traffic from regional google searches but not necessarily Yelp (think lawyers, dentists but not restaurants or hotels). This company in my town is doing it for plastic surgeons (along with web design) and killing it: http://www.etnainteractive.com

I will add some more later ...
https://www.google.com/search?q=define+literally

"2. Used to acknowledge that something is not literally true but is used for emphasis or to express strong feeling."
Should be...

9) A large ecosystem of interoperating JVM languages, from Java-like (Kotlin, Ceylon, Fantom), Ruby/Python like (JRuby, Jython, Groovy), to Haskell like (Scala), to Lisps (Clojure).
They got 18% conversion on their clicks from Perfect Audience? Seems dubious.

With such a small sample of data 109 sessions vs 68 sessions... I wouldn't call this a clear winner.

This could actually just be a case of misattribution of sales.

For example, if the customer clicks on a Perfect Audience ad, they could be tagging that customer as "theirs" for the next 30 days, or forever. So imagine someone clicks on this ad, browses the site again, and leaves. Then they come back 5 days later of their own accord and make a purchase. Perfect Audience may be (incorrectly) attributing that sale as their own.

I'd like to see the Ecommerce breakdown that GA is reporting. (this data: http://www.pearanalytics.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/12/2012...)
Ok, call it cancer doc humor...
I have no idea what Amy Hoy does, but I have some passing familiarity with Patrick's story. He knew the market -- i.e. the people who needed this -- and he saw that what was available was utterly crappy. Then he made something better -- as in vastly superior and actually functional. I vaguely recall some tale of what a nightmare it was to actually print the bingo cards from some site that existed at the time he began working on solving this. As someone else here said, he also did some heavy duty SEO/marketing.

So I really am skeptical about brainstorming a list of niche thingies to choose from, picking one, and raking in the dough. I do not really agree that "ideas are worthless, it is all about execution". But I don't think the language exists to readily express the difference between some completely superficial idea like listing off a bunch of niche markets and the deeper conceptualization that makes "an idea" valuable and executable. Clearly, Patrick had that second thing. His tale is not one of "I know, I am going to brainstorm An Idea and then rake in the dough!"

Ironically, I am routinely told that two of my sites can't be monetized at least in part because they are "too niche". I don't think that is necessarily true, but so far I have not found a solution (and I am willing to go do something else and let those go, if I can figure out what else to do that would actually work for me). I have no idea what Amy Hoy does, but I have some passing familiarity with Patrick's story. He knew the market -- i.e. the people who needed this -- and he saw that what was available was utterly crappy. Then he made something better -- as in vastly superior and actually functional. I vaguely recall some tale of what a nightmare it was to actually print the bingo cards from some site that existed at the time he began working on solving this. As someone else here said, he also did some heavy duty SEO/marketing.

So I really am skeptical about brainstorming a list of niche thingies to choose from, picking one, and raking in the dough. I do not really agree that "ideas are worthless, it is all about execution". But I don't think the language exists to readily express the difference between some completely superficial idea like listing off a bunch of niche markets and the deeper conceptualization that makes "an idea" valuable and executable. Clearly, Patrick had that second thing. His tale is not one of "I know, I am going to brainstorm An Idea and then rake in the dough!"

Ironically, I am routinely told that two of my sites can't be monetized at least in part because they are "too niche". I don't think that is necessarily true, but so far I have not found a solution (and I am willing to go do something else and let those go, if I can figure out what else to do that would actually work for me).
Given the response to Google's call for selection just from municipalities, I'd say the political environment is extremely favorable. Several cities have shown a willingness to rush through new ordinances to make it possible to issue permits quickly.

It's only the pressure from incumbent cable and telco operators that has held back municipal fiber deployment across most of the country. Once that pressure is pushed aside, cities are willing to move very quickly.
But maybe there IS a Silver Bullet[1], veemjeem!

[1] Fred Brooks, "There Is No Silver Bullet" http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/No_Silver_Bullet