skysight-inc/HackerNews huggingface dataset:
How do they finance this? This whole thing is very interesting from a entrepreneurial stand point. The risk is much higher than on the desktop market.
> At the point you're carrying around a keyboard anyway, why not just have a Macbook Air?

Because you _don't have to_ carry around a keyboard and a display if you don't plan on producing content and just want to make phone calls read ebooks.

Can I tear off the screen and keyboard off a Macbook Air and use it as a phone? No? Well then I want a Ubuntu Phone then.

Well at least in theory ...

Another way to look at it, I already have a TV, a laptop, a tablet, and a phone. As mobile hardware gets faster and better, I would eventually just love to have one device -- a phone. I could connect it to my large screen tv, a good keyboard, a smaller LCD display, USB storage and so on.
This has been repeatedly invalidated over and over and over again, and I'm really tired of being brought up as the excuse.

First, you can simply prove that's not right empirically: start loading a large page, slap down your finger, scroll around for awhile, notice that the rendering has halted (which seems to confirm what you're saying), and then release your finger, to witness the page snap to 100% completeness. Why? Because things were indeed continuing in the background; the only thing that "blocked" is that the OpenGL canvas you're dragging around doesn't get swapped while you're scrolling.

Here's what's actually happening: iOS makes it absurdly easy to do computations on background threads. Android doesn't. iOS makes it very easy to offload a lot of processing to the GPU. Android doesn't. The difficulty means that many apps end up doing computation and actual rendering on the UI thread, which, surprise, makes for a jerky experience, whereas most iOS apps do the computation on a different thread than they do their rendering. Throw in that Dalvik's GC is beyond horrible and you've got everything you need for a nice and jittery UI experience.

Note that Android absolutely allows you to do background processing, GPU-heavy rendering; it's just harder. You can even avod the GC by carefully reusing objects in fast-render loops. In fact, our Android Trello dev either just released or is about to release an update to the Android app that makes it scroll smooth as silk by doing all of the above. But it requires a lot more effort to get to the same place, which is why "all" iOS apps perform better than Android ones.
Didn't DHH basically use "your mileage may vary" in his "The Parley Letter" essay? [1]

> So yes, the closer your application is to an application like Basecamp -- and I make that net extremely wide, I consider, say, 500px, Github, Shopify, and others to fall into "close enough" -- the closer you are to the primary use case that guides the development of Rails.

...I read that as "your mileage may vary" for rails if your application is dissimilar to basecamp, because design decisions are primarily made to support basecamp's use case (and not yours). Its more subtle than that, and you need to read the essay for the context of that statement, but that was one of the things I took away from it.

[1] http://david.heinemeierhansson.com/2012/the-parley-letter.ht...
It's nice. I lived and breathed LINQ for many years. It's certainly useful; though I've been able to live without it fairly comfortably. It's just not a deal-breaker for me.

But it is nice. I do love LINQ-to-objects.
Do you exercise daily? Do you take walks in nature? Do you keep a gratitude journal? Do you meditate?

Because if there is a single one of these that you don't do, maybe the problem is that you don't execute on the good advice already around you.
It's a good point, but you should also put it in context with Chuck Close's monastic dedication. Unlike a lot of artists, he seeks out constraints. Often times he starts out by closing off options, and then seeing what scope for creativity is left.

For instance, he's done a zillion self-portraits. He thinks his face is uninteresting, so he can explore pure technique. (Also, I guess he's always available as a model.)

Perhaps this is all part of making creativity a predictable thing - he doesn't get lost in infinite options.
It doesn't matter, all ways lead to the center. To borrow an analogy: objecting to one way of meditation in favor of another is like a ferry boat captain complaining to the government that someone else has opened up another ferry business down-stream. "Let all operate ferry boats who will, and if you don't have the sense to stay off one that sinks, that's your problem." -Alan Watts
Endlessly frustrating that there is such vindictive zeal on the left for pushing the face of the economy into the dirt by refusing to cut spending.
What's the difference? I assume "ubuntu for phones" is where you physically install ubuntu on your phone (ie. it boots into the linux kernel with an ubuntu userland), but what's "ubuntu for android"? Is that (purely guessing here) an Ubuntu VM sold as an app, so phones would be running ubuntu inside a virtual machine under the Android OS's control?
Your argument is something like, "If you want to have a successful startup, you should complete college, because most of these hyper-successful people have completed college."

You then say the probability of having a college degree, given that you are on the Forbes 400 list, is 85%. That doesn't necessarily tell you the answer the question "What is the probability of making it to the Forbes 400 list, given that you have (or don't have) a college degree?"

Let's think about what you are trying to do. You want to take the population of college attending startup founders (or future founders), and make a prediction about which members of that group will be hugely successful based on whether or not they complete college. Let's say you run a survey of your readers now and then follow up with them 10 years from now. This would allow you to calculate several things:

* The probability of great success with college completion.

* The probability of great success without college completion.

Do you think those numbers are going to be appreciable? Do you think they'll be similar in magnitude? I suspect they'd be much smaller than 1%. In other words, I don't think that college completion is a strong predictor of great (Forbes 400 level) success. You haven't really established a causal relationship between finishing college and becoming wildly successful.

I suspect (and I think this is the point the GP is making) that your last name (is it Walton? or Pritzker?) or your parents' income would be much stronger predictors of this type of success.
Scheme vs Common Lisp: war stories
> 3. "Advanced runtime" - garbage collection. I'd rather use ARC in Objective-C instead of depending on a garbage collector.

I'd rather eat a burrito than a salad. This is not a very good technical critique of the nutritional benefits of salad vs. burritos.

> "Reliability" – type safety. Really? And Java/Objective-C aren't type safe? I seriously doubt that anyone considers Java or Objective-C to not be reliable languages when it comes to type safety. This is almost laughable, IMO.

I like Objective-C, but objectively speaking, Objective-C is horrible for type-safety. The id type is used in a lot of places (e.g. every collection class), and you can magically convert anything to anything else without a peep from the compiler through the id type. There is no easy way to say "This is an array of Foo" and have that checked.

A cursory glance at the Objective-C tag on Stack Overflow will show you a lot of programmers coming from safer languages like Java or C# who are confused by Objective-C's lack of type safety.

In practice this is not generally a huge problem once you get into the "Objective-C way of thinking," but static type checking really wasn't a huge consideration in the design of the language. It was designed with the Smalltalk philosophy of "a bunch of things sending messages to each other and responding with messages of their own," which heavily de-emphasizes the importance of concrete types in favor of interfaces.

> "Fast execution. C# on iOS is powered by the LLVM optimizing compiler." Uh, I think I'd rather use Objective-C compiled with LLVM.

This is another "I like burritos" argument.

> "Portability" - this is a decent point, but let's be realistic - we're talking "minimally portable" here. Write-once run-anywhere is a pipe dream, IMO (at least at this point).

While there will always be platform-specific debugging and often some platform-specific code required, it is indeed quite possible and even common to write portable programs. You probably use many of them. Ever used Clang? GCC? Emacs? Ruby? The Bash shell? None of these programs have a completely different codebase for different platforms. They might have some platform-specific code, but having a common, portable base is hardly a pipe dream.
For the first time I've recently been seriously considering going paperless at home.

However, every great solution involves uploading my scans to online services.

This is something I'm not comfortable doing with my sensitive data (i.e. tax records).

Has anyone found or developed tools that can be run locally to organize my files? Something like evernote? I'd like to just scan and shred, and not have to fuss too much with naming files, manually organizing files, etc. A good pdf search interface is a must.
Amazon Wins Dismissal of Apple’s False Advertising Claim
Small Business Health Plans In Pennsylvania
it takes years to die as a second hand smoker, even the smokers ten to live on for decades. but bullets are swift like cyanide, intended to kill and do kill for sure
Based on whose stats?
Report: Apple offered half billion to acquire Waze
Yes, and one person can have multiple phone numbers. That was just an example of another data which can be used for identity which is far less ambiguous than the proper name. The point with identities is that, if you need to be able to identify someone with a single piece of information, it can't be defined by the person being identified; instead it has to be appointed by a globally central authority, since it's the only way to ensure uniqueness. So in any case, names are completely irrelevant when it comes to identity.
How much of that C# code pre-dates the availablilty of those features?
No, a zen master
It would be interesting to see if you could pursue a case of legal malpractice against the firm which took this case to the patent office in the first place.
I did, and I don't get your point. Since we already have multiple people with the same name, I don't see how a name is relevant when it comes to uniquely identifying a person.
Review my startup: PushLayer.com
IPhone 6 Might Come With iOS 7, Flexible OLED Display And NFC
Well at least I knocked you down from saying we'll never see FPS in the browser to okay-maybe-but-not-all-that-soon. Perhaps I can take you one step further, and inform you that a browser-based FPS on Facebook has over a million active players. https://www.facebook.com/appcenter/uberstrike?fb_source=sear...

I saw your previous comment earlier, and even gave it an up-vote. I'm new to Hacker News, but perhaps some day I'll have the right to down-vote; and when I do, I won't use it simply because I disagree with someone.
I used to work as a professional mechanic and the auto industry used to be split, with American brands using SAE and imports using metric. This was all changing fast in the 90s such that pretty much everything is metric on cars these days. Still, there are a few exceptions here and there.
"...there are no immediate plans for actual Ubuntu phones, and no carriers have been signed up yet ... although we're told that the OS will run on any new phone built for Android, should the manufacturer see merit in installing Ubuntu instead." from here:

http://www.engadget.com/2013/01/02/ubuntu-for-smartphones/

Looks like they updated the text, but still. The manufacturer doesn't install things on my phone, I do. Looks like they also mention a Nexus build in the coming weeks. When that happens I'll consider my challenge met. I'm just hoping something actually comes of this, unlike Ubuntu for Android which went nowhere.

I'm also extremely annoyed by mentions of manufacturers here. I don't need Dell's blessing to install Ubuntu on my laptop, and I don't need HTC's blessing to install an alternate OS on my phone. So give me the software, already.
Daimler's "Car2go" service (available here in Vancouver and some other cities) allows you to leave the car anywhere in their core service area.

http://car2govancouver.com/
This is similar to https://snipt.net
GCD is very similar to writing against the TPL ... so you have the choice of writing async/await code which makes the execution flow very easy to grok; or if that doesn't make sense in a given scenario you can just fire of a task. Best of both worlds :)
Some things I don't like from the design:

* Why making the whole central image clickable instead of just the yellow button area?

* In the register page, it looks weird that every field have the same icon.

* More screenshots/video to show how does the service look like would be great. Maybe you should put a bigger link for the walkthrough video instead of a tiny link at the footer?

BTW, it's a nice idea, keep working on it!
C#'s (and Java's) lack of multiple inheritance is a virtue, IMO.
eBay is too corporate for me personally and diluted. Also, there's no trading. Think a mix of Etsy and eBay, but more personalized. Craigslist has no built in payment methods, it's all rudimentary. We do that for trades.

So overall, it's like a more personalized mixture of both.
My Ford car is all metric as well.
They are already tainted with Windows. They probably gone through a good round of scapegoating blaming Qt and its previous Linux based phone for its failure and Canonical / Ubuntu probably wouldn't want to be associated with Nokia at this point as it will leave a bad taste in developer's mouths.
Canonical is in the process of ditching X: https://wiki.ubuntu.com/Wayland

Ubuntu Phone uses Qt/QML and HTML5: http://developer.ubuntu.com/get-started/gomobile/
Dropbox to Merge with Box.com, Soon to Become Dropbox Box
oops, I think I should slink away quietly now...
Completely depends on the car. Wife has a 2006 Mariner, it has 19mm wheel nuts. My '91 Explorer is 5/8" or 9/16" or so (I don't remember). I also have a BMW that's 100% metric of course. And a '68 mustang that's 100% SAE.

The explorer is metric in a lot of places. The engine is SAE since it's based on the 302 which was originally designed in the early '60s. Pretty much anything that was designed from the mid 80s or later will be 100% metric hardware unless it needs to work with something that isn't. And even then it'll will sometimes be metric until it hits the non-metric piece. For example, the Tremec T-5 transmission is metric but mates up to the Ford 302 which is SAE.

So basically, it's usually metric except when it's not.
I'm sure you already know this, but for future readers: check out gofix [0] when you find yourself in this situation.

[0] http://golang.org/cmd/fix/

[1] http://blog.golang.org/2011/04/introducing-gofix.html
That is a false statement. dynamic C# 4.0 can do mixins: http://amirrajan.net/Blog/dynamic-c-sharp
> Their data shows that C# popularity grew by 2.3 percent in 2012, more than any other programming language during the same period.

As many pointed out when that story came out, that datapoint is highly suspicious. There are plenty of smaller languages that have surely grown much more than that (it's easier to grow more when you are small).

Also, the actual popularity is what really matters, not the increase. If C# increased 2.3% from 1000 to 1023, but say Java was at 1,000,000 and stayed there at 0% growth, then the conclusion is obvious. (Not saying those are the numbers, the point is that actual popularity trumps a few percent of growth in a year.)

> What accounts for the growth of C# in 2012? Well, the launch of Windows 8 has probably played a role — C# remains the dominant language of third-party application development on Windows devices.

Doubtful. Windows 8's launch has been a failure, even compared to Vista according to the latest figures. And is C# even the "dominant language" for Windows 8? It seems JavaScript might be just as important if not more so for Metro apps.
Upwardly Mobile
Saw your previous comment and hunted this down. Just read the whole thing -- very, very cool. Regus Businessworld will definitely come in handy; $300/yr isn't bad at all, but 6 months free can't be beat! Nice job.
The point of that article is not to define any definite solution; it's just to remind the programmers that there is a nonzero number of cases when any of the assumptions on the list (and any that are missing) will be wrong. Of course that one should cover most and not all cases, but they should be flexible enough to anticipate a surprise of that kind.
I personally hope the patent law abuse gets to the point that it destroys the entire patent system. So go for it. Sue schools, the elderly, whatever.
"Real" List Comprehensions in 24 Lines of Lisp
Or, you know, a good old query string.
2005 IARC & WHO report finds combined oral contraceptives carcinogenic to humans
But that doesn't say anything about being related in any way with Android code, does it?

Also I think since kernel 3.3 Android uses the exact same kernel as other Linux distros. The Android kernel got merged with the normal Linux kernel. So I don't see why it would be a problem for them to use the same kernel.
They just called me, asked me to verify my information and said that my number would be emailed to me within 24-48 hours. No hassle at all.
There are libraries that add both of these features at once (either by defining new (meta)metaclasses or by simulating same effect through simple copying of methods from base classes.)

On the other hand, Smalltalkers are quite keen on adding new methods to almost any existing system class, so mixins are not often as useful. Also Smalltalk development often relies on IDEs that do pretty extensive code generation behind the scenes and I think that this image based development with no real source code to speak of, and lots of reflection based development tools, is more important aspect of Smalltalk than any OO features.
The present-day patent office is a joke. They basically just rubber stamp whatever you send them, and do so in priority order of who knows how to play their elaborate and bizarre game of approval queue gaming.
Agreed. For me, it was a big shift at first transitioning from a more vocational mindset (learning the language/framework of the day) to the theoretical (design patterns, paradigms, architecture).

As an aside, just got through Martin Fowler's musing on architecture (http://martinfowler.com/eaaCatalog/). Highly recommended!
Ah, that probably answers it. From what I understand, it's very difficult to cut in line.
From the interview on Engadget, it seems they also want to rely on the community to basically make Ubuntu ROM's for Android devices, although their priority is still to partner with OEM's to make new Ubuntu phones.
Nobody, because A)the cellular radio is on a separate chip and has nothing to do with the OS, and B)people already install ROMs on their phones today, without having to be regulatory compliant. All I'm asking for is an Ubuntu ROM, because while CyanogenMod is cool, GNU>Android.
Intel Web TV project reportedly held up in content negotiations
> I'd rather eat a burrito than a salad. This is not a very good technical critique of the nutritional benefits of salad vs. burritos.

I put about as much effort into my critique as the original article's author did in arguing for C#'s superiority.

> I like Objective-C, but objectively speaking, Objective-C is horrible for type-safety. The id type is used in a lot of places (e.g. every collection class), and you can magically convert anything to anything else without a peep from the compiler through the id type. There is no easy way to say "This is an array of Foo" and have that checked.

This is a problem that has bit me in the ass maybe once or twice since I started developing in Obj-C several years ago. You could magically cast things to whatever you wanted in C++, and that was never a serious problem for me back when I was developing in C++ either. As an avid JavaScript developer as well, I've had no problem with a lack of type safety. It's just not the huge demon (for me) that it's made out to be - at least in my experience.

> They might have some platform-specific code, but having a common, portable base is hardly a pipe dream.

70% code reuse across iOS and Android (see http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=4998661) is hardly what I'd call "portable". Does the Bash shell do better than 70% code reuse across Linux / BSD / etc? I certainly hope it does.
Catmoji – A fun and interactive place for cat-lovers
YAGNI and Supporting Professional Production Software
Only if that name is intended to become official. If not, rather make sure that the field accepts a null value. ;-)
If the tech world has proven anything at all it is that:

huge budget != disruptive innovation

At least not as a rule.

Think about how most (all?) of the top tech companies you know about started: garages, dorms and kitchen tables. HP, Apple, Microsoft, Google, eBay, Facebook, Twitter, etc.

Sure, some needed huge money to scale, but the genesis of the idea-turned-product did not require millions or billions to generate.

Sometimes you have to wonder if hunger is far more valuable than money to spur innovation. I happen to think so. And, while I do not diminish the work being done at companies like MS, sometimes I feel that they are just throwing money at PhD's who are having a great time playing with interesting tech but simply don't have the drive, hunger and urgency to make something more than a great research gig out of it.
Ubuntu Linux enters the smartphone wars
Literally triggered the day they released an advertisement touting the feature. Embarrassing for anyone, inexcusable for Apple.
To Jesse who emailed me; we had an outage with the EmberAds support system, so I lost your details - please mail me at ycombinator at madeofstone.net please.
If you have a locked bootloader sometimes you do , or at least a way to work around it.

I don't get the "put up or shut up" part.
The service is our attempt at making sending push notifications to iOS devices easier. The biggest complaint I've always had as an iOS developer is debugging notifications that don't go through. We've built the site to show every notification you send, along with a status and (soon) extended information from Apple.

A couple of questions:

1. Does the per-notification pricing make sense? I always felt something like "active device tokens" was confusing, whereas this is paying for actual usage.
2. Is the documentation clear enough to get started with?

This is our MVP. We're working on server-side libraries to make sending notifications easier along with further debugging tools. Thanks for any and all feedback!
If only the right could control the presidency and both houses of congress we'd finally see spending get under control right?
Same for Mark Zuckerberg's school http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Phillips_Exeter_Academy
See also Apple "Advanced Technology Group", pre-1997. One of Jobs' first acts on his return was to kill it. I remember all those cool demos we used to get at WWDC of things that never ever saw the light of day while the core OS was turning to crap.
It's hard to get be too sympathetic to this list of gripes?

- you have to put gas in a car. That's hardly much of an inconvenience.

- they are dirty? Its a sharing system, what do you expect? People are slobs mostly, and when there's no incentive to keep something tidy they don't. public transport is no different.

Booking 3 days in advance doesn't seem like such a big deal either.

I don't see the point of zipcar to start with. Just rent a car for the day or use public transport. if you live in an area where those two don't apply, buy a car.

fortunately zipcar has been assimilated into the larger car rental picture now which should improve things.