skysight-inc/HackerNews huggingface dataset:
Most large companies do not allow end-users to install software themselves so I'm imagining they're referring to their IT departments having difficulty installing software.

IME of having had to manage several hundred Windows XP workstations installing 3rd party software was a pretty big issue on Windows as well. From having to verify if works with restricted permissions, to processes to automatically detect machines with out of date software to finding ways to create automated silent installs, it was a good amount of work. Now I'm curious to see how the required effort would compare on a Linux network.
Cool setup, thanks for the info. I know you can do that with vnc somehow as well.
While I was reading this article I felt almost the exact same thing - the whole article feels like bad science because they present the conclusion that "many scientists believe that genetic mutations that build up in the sperm of older men are to blame." Presumably, the only thing this study has shown is that lower intelligence is correlated with older fathers but the cause could be any number of factors like what you said or even, for example, that people with lower intelligences are predisposed to postpone having children.

Basically, thanks Freakonomics for bringing correlation/causation to my mind every time I read an article like this.
Left monitor has mozilla with tabs and behind that a terminal with database command line.

Right monitor has outlook and my main terminal window plus itunes in the background (or whatever I'm listening to).

It is incredibly nice to compare 2 files across the monitors. Also it is nice to be able to have ie6 or ie7 in one windows with mozilla or safari in another to make sure everything lines up correctly.
I think you meant http://www.lifesbook.com/
That's a classic matrix problem. Information fits nicely in two categories. How do you organize it? Choosing one or the other is mostly arbitrary. But current file systems force you to make a choice. BeOS a long time ago sort of wanted to fix that...
good luck, but I dont think u will find many customers for this due to the fact that:

wordpress if free &
twitter is free and lets u keep your updates private if you want i believe

it does look very well done though
Paper: Understanding and Designing New Server Architectures
So he's on the the low end of the long tail. Where the vast majority of iPhone apps dwell....
Almost. I wouldn't keep the extra cruft of vendor, plugin, app and controllers for the simpler divisions of object (say those that are just 1 model, controller, and views), but I've often wondered about that in Rails.
Pick a list of successful people you believe are intelligent. Uncheck those who don't have brothers/sisters. Then look if they're an older/younger kid in the family. I've done the exercise out of curiosity and it appears the article is correct: most famous programmers were older brothers.
I see what your saying and thats why I am looking for feedback on a business model
Yes, that is what I was talking about...
I think they mean that adopting Free Software allowed them to be more aligned with what their nation stands for: Liberté, égalité, fraternité: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Libert%C3%A9,_%C3%A9galit%C3%A9...
except for iTunes, all the requested features are already part of the Android SDK
As far as I know, a three point IQ difference doesn't have any practical effect. It may be statistically significant, but it's hardly a huge advantage to score three points higher than someone else.
I totally agree. Gestures on the iPhone work well because your hand is resting in a natural position. This is more or less true with track pads as well.

If you're going to support mouse gestures, the system must be sensitive enough to act on small, finger-driven, movements. That is, the user must be able to gesture without moving their wrist.
Signed 32bit numbers are +/- 2 Gig. Many x86 instructions only work with signed 32-bit displacement.
I've been using my GC# in a similar manner and its been a great experience. The call log and the ability to filter #'s is a good way to categorize and 'file' my phone calls - And I really like the new UI too!

I was skeptical at first when GC launched (mainly having to give out a new number), but once you properly configure your settings and start getting phone calls you start realizing the service's usefulness.
Without knowing more about you, it's still hazy... ;)
For a web page, you're exactly right, but imagine a functional app that you use every day.

If you've done any amount of user research, you know that thigh-speed users hate using the keyboard and mouse at the same time. For most instances keyboard is king, but for a few, using a mouse exclusively is a great benefit...browsing pictures, for example.

(Just FYI I clicked to turn them on and didn't need to use Ctrl)
Your saying that made me realize that was my reason for disliking the idea, as well.
BBC takes over a botnet
This is just a preview, not the release. I expect the software release to be simultaneous with the hardware release, which Tim Cook has been hinting will be in June.

As with the iPhone 3G and iPhone OS 2.0, they're likely to release exclusively on the new device first before making the update available to older generations. There will probably also be some hardware-based features exclusive to iPhone 2009 to incentivize paying for a refresh.
To me, you just did everything right. The idea of releasing early & often is to learn about your market, understand what your users really need and what your product should be.
Could you have done your 'grand scheme' release without the experience gained during those 2 years?
Amazon tweaks EC2 pricing
Eh... what's with grown women?
I'd get in touch with Matt Schofield about it.

For any other Cambridge (UK) hackers checking out this thread, there's a pizza/beer meetup at the Cambridge Coworking space tomorrow (Friday) night. Plan is to chat about nefarious plans that are going to set Cambridge alight. Get in touch on Twitter (@jedc) if interested.
Also susceptible to other explanations. For instance, perhaps having a younger sibling to teach stuff to is good for your brain.
you need to separate the principle from the dogma...

apparently, you released too early, too often
Move to Dubai? I'm a Canadian living in Toronto and I know headhunters who are trying to find people HERE to relocate there. Salary seems very competitive also.
I'm holding out for any hints at what will go into iPhone 2009. If the 3G and 2.0 were any indication, there might be some new, hardware-bound features exclusive to the next iPhone refresh.

They've done 3G and they've done GPS. What could be next? Processor/video/memory upgrade to support better backgrounding? Camera on the front for video chat? Personally, I'm wishing that Apple will make the phone slightly bigger, with a new, higher opt-in resolution format for developers, but there are enough problems with that to make it a risky move.
They do. :) From the article- "We’ve funded a lot of start-ups from Europe and from England specifically. We would be delighted to have more, especially from Cambridge."
You're assuming my computer came out of a box all set for Facebook and your anally perfect site. It didn't. And then I had the gall to do something outrageous to it. I haven't.

Hm. I just installed Windows XP out of the box, and Facebook works on IE6. That's as strict a test as need be applied.

Facebook has a fixed width. Is that anything new? Lots of site have fixed-width. Even if you're too narrow, can't you scroll normally?

Just don't lose sight of graceful "degradation." Plus it prepares the site for whatever new platforms come along, like the next iPhone.

There isn't going to be a "next" iPhone. There's the iPhone. The next big thing will not be compared to the iPhone at all.

I don't like making things gracefully degrade past a point. I would never design my web site to work for the iPhone. When it comes to making things iPhone-accessible, I'll make a separate thing. Same to when I design a Facebook app for my site.
The "Cult of Done" can kiss my ass (and mark it off their list once they have)
With an average difference of only 3 IQ points that this study
found, these children appear to be missing out on little with regards
to intelligence.

I would be more inclined to believe any differences in intelligence,
if there really are any, are due to the environment in which the child
was raised, rather than genetic advantages and disadvantages. In
today's world, I would guess that children born to 50 year old men are
being born into a family where the wife is not the father's first
wife, and the father is not as likely to be as dedicated a father as
the younger fathers plan to be. This is a sweeping generalization,
but I would wager that for those 50 year-olds who are remarried (once,
twice, or more), by the fact that they did not care to keep the family
intact the first time (excluding cases where the wife died), these men
and their current wives would be less likely to provide a nurturing
environment compared to a young father.

A sweeping generalization, but my gut feeling, based on the likely
fact that many of those 50 year old fathers are remarried once, twice,
or more, indicating to me that they are not as good a father as the
SOME of the 20 year olds will be.

Also, statistics on society's accepted geniuses do not seem to show a
correlation between fathers' ages and the intelligence of the
offspring.

Here is a list I have compiled. IQ scores may be disputed, but the
intelligence of these people generally are not.

Genius IQ Father's age

------ -- ------------

Einstein about 160 31

Galileo 185 44

==========================================

Bobby Fischer 187 Likely father, Paul nemenyi: 48

Birth certificate father, Hans-Gerhardt Fischer: 35

http://www.nndb.com/people/455/000024383/

==========================================

Madame de Stael 180 33

Ludwig Wittgenstein 190 42

Blaise Pascal 195 35

Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz 205 49

John Stuart Mill 200 33

Emanuel Swedenborg 205 34

Johann Wolfgang von Goethe 210 39

As you can see, one of the highest IQ's, Leibniz's, had a father who as 49 years old.

Einstein's, considered the lowest at 160, had a father of 31, the
youngest in this list.

So this is opposite the study's findings. However, I don't really see
a correlation overall.

With the study's difference of only 3 IQ points on average, I am
inclined to believe that age makes no difference in the intelligence
of their offspring, especially in those families that provide a
nurturing environment, regardless of the parents' ages.
What Do You Tell People You Are?
For release early, release often, you need to know where you are going.

It works especially well if you have a model to copy: Microsoft Windows 1.0, 2.0, 3.0 was based on the Macintosh. Linux was based on Unix.

Or you can have clear vision that you are working towards - in this case, the model you are copying is imaginary.

I guess that's the "Grand Scheme" the article is talking about. You do have to have a way to keep that in mind, and build towards it. You can do this by giving selective attention to the feedback (bug reports, feature requests, complaints) that leads towards your Grand Scheme. This also builds a user base that is aligned with what you want to do (by encouraging those people, and turning off the others). Then your user base supports your vision, instead of undermining it.

You are the captain.
Isn't Dubai experiencing a mass exodous due to the global financial crisis?
Squeaky...as in Squeaky Clean?
The article is nowhere near as controversial as the title makes it sound. You released what you called "half-baked" ideas, so it's no wonder it didn't quite work.

Clearly there is a "too early": taking release early and often to its logical extreme you would first release a "Hello World" app then extend in thousands of iterations of 1 line of code, which is clearly nonsense.

Look at the positives - you learned a hell of a lot about your market and development from this experiment, so I'm sure the next version will be a success.
There's an attitude here (I thought nickblack had it, too) that says Google will beat Facebook. I wanted to make the argument that that's not going to happen.

I also don't understand why, exactly, you think Google has bad design. It has been a pleasure to use every Google application I've tried.

Their design is better than a lot of design, but it's not good. I get pleasure from them when they're ahead of the curve: they've never made an app comparable to an existing thing that's a pleasure to use. Google Docs doesn't make text pretty, it has too much clutter, and it makes meaningless design decisions. Gmail has little nitpicky design things that feel like toothaches. (I hate that the messages get put into little blue sandwiches, and I hate the font they use for the writing in between.) The only Google product whose design I really like is their search, and that's because they got it nearly right the first time.
I have wondered about this too, but I recall reading that sperm quality also varies with the current bodily state. Maybe the end of high school would be the best age. But it is a strange thought to have: you are essentially depositing unborn babies into a bank, and retrieving them when you decide you want them.

To take it further, you could freeze enough sperm for 100 conceptions, then get a vasectomy. Which probably yields an even more efficient outcome, with stranger connotations.
After reading two paragraphs, I wanted to know how many times they used the word "cloud" on that page. It's 72: http://twitpic.com/21an7
A couple of months earlier, Tony posted a comment regarding agile and some remarks regarding the Christian faith.

I respectfully replied to that posting pointing out that Jesus is truly who he says he is and that we can know this for sure if we honestly approach Him ready to do what he asks of us. He says that "whosoever is willing to do God' will, shall know if Jesus' teachings are true." (John 7:17). I have personally come to find this to be true.

Now I am fully aware that many people are skeptical and many for good reasons.

Please, be careful not to hurry to conclusions though.

It appears that Jesus was trying to reach to him and help him through his pain. You see, no one could foresee what he would do, yet Jesus did and I find this remarkable.

Jesus is God coming to reach us where we are, lost and far away from Him. He died on the Cross so that "whosoever believes in Him, should not perish but have eternal life.". Trust in Him, and you will have peace with God and eternal security.

I pray Tony will be well and you guys will ask Jesus to help figure out this confusing world of religions.

Florin Gheorghies
Atlanta, GA
Things that are never criticized will never get improved. I frown upon your disdain for critical thinking.
Can we draft a law preventing journalists from trying to interpret statistics?
Tony has been found ok by the police
That risks conflating intelligence, IQ, fame, programming ability (and programming affinity), and general organizedness into one. You may be right -- but we have zero idea to what degree.

Two parts of your statement. 1. most famous programmers were older brothers: interesting statistic. But 2. it doesn't support the older-father-lower-IQ hypothesis.
Yes, you'd really need siblings who came from the same parents, yet were separated at birth.
Writing the post, that's what I realized. The problem is that when we had enough experience, we didn't stop to "release often" and it hurt us more than it helped us.
My stepfather has said a few times that he wishes he had taken the "further" option.

I'm not sure if I ever want kids, but something about freezing my sperm and getting a vasectomy worries me. A fire at the sperm bank, and my genetic legacy is lost forever.

(Of course I could go in for a reversal, but those don't always take, etc., etc.)
Know what's not a part of the Android SDK? An incredibly clean interface with supersnappy response, auto-sync to my Mac and to MobileMe, and the ability to use the SDK on a personal music player (let's call it a "touch") rather than a phone.

They're both good. Let's both be quiet and let people discuss the iPhone, not Android.
What caused all of this:

http://bradclow.blogspot.com/2009/03/tonys-letter-to-medical...
Heinlein's book "Podkayne of Mars" describes couples marrying and freezing entire babies to be thawed out later when they are older, wealthier, and presumably wiser.
remember kids, every friday is a fortran day
Are there many people who apply with iPhone apps nowadays? I'm curious.
The big thing with the Pre is the card-like metaphor for navigation. I doubt Apple will steal that for the iPhone, though it might be possible that we see a command-line launch system similar to the Pre's.
I think this is a very exciting development for the open source community. More and more applications are going web based, and I can see a future where the only application anyone will really need is a web browser. We already have Google docs, once that functionality improves just a little bit there's your office suite. Serve your ticket and lien database through a secure web connection or VPN, and you're good to go. Total software cost: 0.

Surely it must be cheaper to employ a couple of Linux techs than to keep bleeding money in license fees. Windows environments needs techs anyway, so most of the cost is already budgeted.

There will be some cost and security concerns, but it seems clear to me that over the long term open source is a better solution. This could even lead to government sponsored developers who are paid to improve open source projects, somewhere way down the line. Exciting stuff!
I don't know if this is a good thing or a you-should-ride-your-bike-more thing.
It was half-baked because we felt the urge to release often. I consider this experience very positive, we learned a lot but meanwhile, our product had to fail and now, we have to resurrect it.
Are you seriously saying you think there aren't any legitimate situations where a person would want more than a single physical phone? You've never lived or worked in a building with terrible cell phone reception, had a dead battery but still really needed people to be able to get a hold of you, had your phone stolen, or had your simcard go bad?

But the multiple phone number management thing, that's really just a marketing hook, the easiest possible sell for the mass market right now, isn't it? This service provides all of the features you could want when managing voice communications, completely independent from a physical device. I mean, really, why even have a phone at all? Just plug into your voice service however you damn well please, that's the actual story here.
Numerical Models - Mathematics Takes On Making Sexier Lingerie
On the contrary, please don't show a list of my info to someone when my phone is locked.
I agree. The location and map features on the iPhone is one of the most compelling developments in the mobile arena. Okay yeah, visual voicemail is cool, so are IM apps, but this is the one thing that other phones have simply been unable to do up until now without it being a giant PITA.

The iPhone App Store would be a better place if devs had access to the same map widget that Apple themselves use. I can think of a million ways this can be used.
I think the lesson here is that you can't rely on the appstore to do your marketing for you. The iFart story is tragic for what it says about the audience; the only things it really tells a developer is that the general audience has low tastes, and that it's possible to get lucky.

At this point the chances of hitting the jackpot as an iphone dev are low and getting lower. But it should be possible to build solid sustainable businesses that have a mobile app as part of their overall strategy.

If you're looking for a get-rich-quick scheme this week, look twitterward :P
"As you would expect after a user has been using the site for a few months the data (their entires) we store for them becomes really quiet valuable to the user."

True enough, but please don't hold your users' data hostage.
Somehow I doubt a significant hardware revision is on the cards.

They have a good penetration with the 1st and 2nd generations. Bringing out a new model now would schism the app community (you need X to work with the 3rd gen iPhone).... This would be a pain, and I'm not sure there is a compelling reason/feature right at this moment.

If anything, they might bump up the storage (to 32Gb+?) - although this might eat into their iPod market... And/or They could also introduce a cut-down cheaper version to get into other markets.
Those look promising, especially techstars (we're in CO). Thanks for the info.
Kenya's Mobile Banking Revolution (Mobile Payments)
FYI, Tien Shinhan in Dragonball is based on him.
'Invisibility cloak' directs light away from eye
http://wundrbar.com ?
Has it "failed"?

You have a user base, and you've experimented with lots of features very quickly. You now you have a very clear idea of what you want, what the market wants, and a sense of how different features and implementations contribute to that.

Did you have such a clear idea at the beginning? Could have have gotten this clarity in any other way?

Prototyping won't tell you the right way, but it gives you concrete terms to think within: by holding some aspects constant, it's easier to reason about the remaining aspects. Prototyping is an aid to thinking.

But I feel your pain; this is an ordeal. It would be so much less frustrating to know how to do everything perfectly in the first place. :-)
First, as always, congratulations on launching and getting something out the door. I think that's one of the hardest things to do, so kudos to you for getting something out there.

I kinda like this idea though I'm not sure I'd pay $9.99 a month for it. Also, if you were industrious enough you could do this yourself with a private WP blog that you email posts to, but obviously not everyone knows how to do that.

A few thoughts about your web site that after a first look.

1.) The first thing that grabs my eye is the "A Diary + Twitter = LifesBook" yellow block in the center of the page and it immediately confused me. I first thought that the app somehow integrated with Twitter and then thought "There's no way I'd post my private thoughts to a Twitter stream." At this point, peeps who feel the same way might move on.

2.) The phrase "(SMS type functionality)" in the yellow box only confused me more and I still have no idea what it means even after realizing that you can text thoughts to your service.

3.) The next block under the yellow block focuses more on features than benefits. I wouldn't lead with "SMS Diary Entires", "Memory Bank", and "Locked and Secure". Those don't mean much to me as the user. Try something like "Post from Anywhere", "Never Forget a Thought", and "We Keep Your Secrets" instead.

4.) Small typo under the Spare Change heading on the home page. You end with "Seriously just got nuts." I think you mean "just go nuts", right?

5.) Others may disagree, but I don't love the name. I think my biggest fear of using a service like this is that I'd be posting my most private thoughts out into the cloud, so a name that somehow let me know that you're storing my secrets as securely as possible would be a plus. Sorry I don't have a good name suggestion right now, but it's something to think about.

Anyway, best of luck to you. I think if you keep tweaking and iterating you'll find something that people really dig.
I suspect if pg was not using Arc he would not be keeping everything in memory.

I don't want to speak for pg, but I highly doubt this. He chose the architecture he did for good reason. Looking things up in memory is much faster than looking them up in the database. The only issue is that the site is too big to fit entirely into memory now, so he needs to write something that cleanly manages the memory space. (BerkeleyDB calls this a pager; data is stored in pages that can be in memory or disk.)

With that in place, the site should perform fine.
Oh I don't plan to at all
Tim O'Reilly: The Social Nervous System Has More Than One Sense