skysight-inc/HackerNews huggingface dataset:
Grand Central To (Finally) Launch As Google Voice. It’s Very, Very Good.
Patent troll to sue Linden Lab, Blizzard
I agree that the issues you raise probably contributed to this apps failure. But I think the underlying point is still an important one. For some reason many in the development community seem to see the iPhone as some great untapped market where you can make easy money. When the reality is the iPhone/iPod Touch platform is probably the most competitive market out there right now.

There are already 25,000 iPhone apps after just 8 months and all reports seem to indicate that the growth rate is quickening. So you better have some significant resources behind you if you want to get noticed.
PG said that the twittergirl had little value and you agreed, nothing personal, just saying I happen to have found value in it.

What I will never understand about this community:

I get negative Karma for defending an article that was clearly appreciated by some and this guy gets 10+ points for saying "what are you complaining about?" (something of zero value.)
IIRC, Linux uses the high-bit to distinguish between userspace and kernel space.
What makes that extra $3 more important then the initial $2? Its still less then how much you spend on a coffee or a lunch during a single morning/afternoon.

//edit: Real question here. Especially since I'm (and I'm assuming others are) looking at doing iPhone dev at some point in the future.
"Suicide is not chosen; it happens when pain exceeds resources for coping with pain" makes sense to me. But the page fails, I think, to address the fact that external resources are needed for coping, period. And I don't just mean a listening ear, which can be hard enough to find, or a psychotherapist. No, sometimes you really do need people to do tangible things, like give you a car or force someone violent out of your life or treat your medical problem or take care of your baby--without sucking you into a nightmare of paperwork and barely functional social services.

Everyone, except perhaps Grizzly Adams, needs other people. Some days you need a new client for your Rails expertise. Some days you need a plumber. You need those guys who stock the grocery store in the middle of the night. And you need real life friends. Friends who don't sap your energy or tell you what to think. Friends who will scrounge up a car for you.

Edit addendum: Hillary used to say, "It takes a village to raise a child." Yeah, whatever. What I'm trying to say is, it takes a community for thriving and emotional health. And don't let Ayn Rand tell you otherwise. There's no shame in hitting a point where you can't "produce" and you need help from others. You're not self-made. No one is. And a person who needs help is not a loser. Or a "looter."
Thanks, I wasn't aware of that. I think baked-in dynamic typing is preferable, but I suppose there are cases where this could work just as well.
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it doesn't sound like they've solved one of the bigger single phone number issues: people still have to know my mobile phone number because when I dial direct from my mobile phone, I cannot get my Grand Central number of come up as my caller ID number (the best I can tell anyway and for obvious reasons).
This policy is already in effect. When your karma hits 6000, you'll see the real site.
Or we can just exercise a bit of patience, wait no more than a day for the Erlang craze to subside, and stop putting so much worry into gauging whether HN is on the brink of destruction. Also consider that in these waves of 'new users,' many might actually be looking for intelligent discussion. The idiots will get bored eventually.
I didn't really notice, though I saw that PG mentioned he might. Unfortunately that's just a short-term bandage; hopefully PG will come up with a more long-term solution for growth. HN will keep on growing, slowly but surely, unless PG chooses to actively stop its growth somehow.
I do not spend $5 on coffee, and it should be a bother if you do.

Now, if you get a mega soy chai latte blah bullshit, then whatever. But black coffee? Really?
Alan Greenspan Says the Federal Reserve Didn't Cause the Housing Bubble
"About damn time."

Gmail integration will be the killer feature here.
While the comment above may not have the best manners, it does bring up an interesting point. I certainly wouldn't mind hearing more about HN's setup.
The project has been spun off to a seperate company: www.siri.com

They are still very hush-hush, but launch sometime in may.
There seems to be a few bike shed arguments in your email. Tabbed vs spaced formatting? What's next? One True Brace? I will say that it is laudable that you where sufficiently worked up by your student's plight to write that, although an inquisitive (as opposed to arrogant) tone might have netted better results. Good luck in any case.
> We have 100 Google Voice accounts to give out to readers, but you must have a gmail account. If you’d like one, please send an email from your gmail account to techcrunch@gmail.com (note that this isn’t an account we check regularly) with the exact subject “Google Voice Account” - the first 100 will get an account invitation from Google.
Remember 1979: Is this time different?
I find that it makes it easier for browsing
As stated in other comments, diplomacy doesn't work on tenured individuals. I'm not trying to get the professor to change their lesson plans, that's impossible.

I'm trying to make them aware that some are struggling and that explanation is more important than slapping code up on an overhead.

Spaced formatting is fine, forcing it on your students is unconscionable and inexcusable. It wastes gobs of time in editing that should've been spent thinking about flow control.
I'll drop $2 on an app if it seems decent, but I probably wont' spend $5+ unless there is I think it will be exceptional.

You are hardly alone in this point of view among iPhone users I have heard from. I mean this as no disrespect to you personally: software writers who intend to make something with a little more functionality than "farts, belches, and wiggles" should probably choose a customer base which pays a wee bit more money for applications.

(A little bird mentioned "grown women" to me.)

I have a lot of difficulty doing the math on how advertising is supposed to make money at the $1.00 price point. It took a bit of work for me at $25, even though my clicks cost a few pennies. Are the conversion rates for iPhone apps just stratospherically high (10%+ of clicks on an ad) or are people just hoping the advertising kicks off the snowball to get you on the most popular list?
Erlang: It's time to be uncomfortably parallel
Making HN Boring: The Erlang B Calculator...
Ask HN: The Winner's Curse. Your startup stories/experiences from failed startups.
There's been a lot of great startup stories on the web, and in book form, (founders at work, code named ginger, etc) but most of them have been about startups that succeeded in one form or another. (money, publicity, etc.)
I'm interested in hearing about the other side of the story. Failed startups..
1.) What did the founders learn?
2.) Was it worth it?
3.) would they do it again? what are they up to now?
4.) what was their background before starting the company?

Feel free to add more questions that you want answered!
Thanks for the laughs.
PARALLEL DATABASES!
Lets Go Deep - Start Calling Josh Hamilton Chipper
Thanks for nitpicking at the example I gave instead of answering my question. Very helpful :)

Though, I feel like i need to defend my coffee drinking habits; Since when is there something special about a large iced latte at Starbucks or Dunkin' Donuts + tax when its hot out during the summer?
You might find this useful for more stories also, though it doesn't hurt to ask again: http://searchyc.com/post+mortem
A New Battery That Charges In Seconds
You are wrong about void. K&R2, pp. 72-73.
This community is confusing me more than you...

When it comes to up-voting and down-voting... you will see all of these crazy things!
Sergey Brin has a mutation of the LRRK2 gene.
"Individually, our genes and experiences are lost in a sea of statistical noise. But, taken together they become a high-power lens on our inner workings."
GrandCentral finally (re)launching as Google Voice, with new features
Thank God. I was worried you had pushed the big red noprocrast.
I'm aware that K&R states to do that on page 73, I just saw it myself, but it's no longer standard nor necessary.

This goes back to what I said about cargo cults. :(
hm...if it's "busywork" you'd think it would be computationally tractable.

That, would be interesting.
Yeah, these days we have totally different myths like "Erlang is the fastest programming language" and "Erlang automatically scales your code on multicore".
Behavioral Targeting: Google Pulls Out the Stops
This is a very poor idea. Unless you want to keep the community frozen as is, you can't NOT show visitors the real site. If that were the case I'd probably stop coming myself.
Levi Johnston and Bristol Palin break up
What do you mean by this? Is this the same method of declaring inner functions within the scope of the outer function?
Wow, this is so boring I flagged it.

This is the distribution you use to analyze people waiting in lines! Unless it doesn't fit right in which case you just use another distribution.
I think the comment was meant as sarcasm
Here it is: http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=505321
It's a close pun for a Chinese phrase that would be taken to mean "_____ your mother."
There isn't much of a reason. It's a purely psychological barrier, but it exists, and you have to account for it. Prices are getting lower and lower for mobile apps, and that's just what the market accepts now.
Right now I WFH for health reasons. I have my work laptop in the front room and my personal computer in a different room. Only problem is the wii is in the front room ;) but I am not working full time right now so it's ok.
My team for many years had 3 people, all working thousands of miles from each other. If you are in the same town I suggest meeting up on a weekly or daily basis; I would do it at the beginning of the day or week to set goals and parse out work. Also have an IRC or other chat room for when you aren't together.
So try to find a partner that finds the stuff you're uninterested in interesting.

Thanks for the concrete advice.
Some different perspectives/more optimistic experiences:

(1)
"I never made close to the amount of money iFart did, but my app LifeTimer paid 2 mortgage payments (therefore paying for the dev license AND the iPhone.) My suggestion is to download the SDK first, play with it, and if you get a good start on an app then pay the $100."

(2)
"I have 41 cheap and simple (but useful) apps on the App Store right now and have been growing my catalog since late July. Each app took me less than a day to do. Some days I've cranked out five apps (and no, they are not the stupid "Countdown till Easter, Countdown till Christmas" apps). I easily have pulled $10k/month for the last 6 months in a row, quit my day job, and now do iPhone stuff full time. I have no employees, no costs (besides tax), minimal no-cost marketing, and no time schedule. I work MAYBE five to ten hours per week on this stuff."

http://forums.macrumors.com/showthread.php?t=621564&page...

The reality of the iPhone app store is sobering. If you build something average or maybe a little above average, they will not come in droves. I believe if you build something truly kick-ass and inform the right influencers - word of mouth via Twitter will get you on TechCrunch and its ilk in 24 hours or less.

I also believe, however, that there will always be a small market for iPhone apps that are relatively novel and/or useful on a daily basis (useful: Tweetie is the best paid Twitter client in my opinion - integrated Summize search).

For example of something that is novel, iPhone Pano (guides you through taking six photos and stitches them into a fairly impressive panoramic photo - you used to need Photoshop/Gimp to manually stitch them together). I use it quite a lot. It cost $2.99 and I think I've gotten way more out of it (friends wondering what the heck I was doing with the iPhone and being wow'd by the resulting picture that I emailed once I sync'd with my MacBook).

Should I quit with learning iPhone SDK since the market is so competitive? I've rationalized to continue the learning curve (more off than on though) because I want to write some apps that I would personally use. I will probably get the $99/yr license just to deploy my own apps once I make it up the learning curve. It's not about an embarrassment of iPhone app riches - it's about an interesting new hobby - one that your non-geek friends (who likely have an iPhone) might appreciate eventually.
why are there so many erlang submissions lately? i'm not ready to bandwagon yet
I wonder how this will integrate with Android. I suspect soon they will have a feature to use grandcentral voice mail, then I will get the fancy visual voice mail but with the text underneath.

Awesome.
Turning cheap cell phones into smarter phones
I agree. We all found out about this site somehow.
PR firm launches Twendz: A Twitter trend analyzer
Either/or. Ideally, we'd like to go without investment (our only expenses are living costs), but we're looking at all the options.
Quick everybody lets talk about Erlang!
This would make electric cars even more viable and practical.

I can't wait to see the unexpected ways this will change my life. Any ideas?
Ask HN: HN Meetup at SXSW?
As the title states. I'm flying down to Austin tomorrow and will be there for the next week for SXSW Interactive. I already know a handful of HN regulars that will be there.. so why not have a meetup?

Someone familiar with Austin name a bar and a time (when there arent any digg or facebook parties)?

I'm @stammy
Early-stage biotech firms excluded from Obama stimulus plan?
You can- 1) If you initiate a call via browser from GC's site, you have the option of making the number of your choice (your GC or cell/land #) or 2) if you use GrandDialler app on iPhone, it too can make the call with your GC # as the source

edit- forgot to add, there is vocito app (http://code.google.com/p/vocito/) for mac
Geithner to Congress: Stimulus for Entrepreneurs Imminent
Arc compiles into MzScheme, but it's not implemented as macros. You can see that from the source.
Has anyone realized Google is creating a Social network right under your feet?
There ends up being only 2GB of heap, which is where all the stories and comments live.
From my (very limited) experience, price has little impact on sales. I have conducted a few experiments with my app, and found sales the same regardless of pricing (tested $1 and $2).

What makes a huge difference, is how far from the front page you are, meaning the absolute best thing you can do for sales is release regular updates.
It's all PG's fault --> http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=512145
Quick Start to (Lisp Flavoured Erlang)
Hi, If you love lisp, and the speed of Erlang. The there is a solution out there. Right know. =)
If you're really curious and have the time, you can download the source: http://arclanguage.org/install
(Lisp Flavoured Erlang)
Use the source, Luke.
i wonder if they've done even preliminary tests on how this affects battery life and how long a charge is held.
> GrandCentral will also remain solely a U.S. service.

Alright, I am now adding Google Voice to my (Canadian) technology waiting list along with:

Amazon Kindle, Skype Inbound #, Mint.com and Braintree Gateway.
Tell HN: I am over Erlang
title really says it all.
Then submit something more interesting, not yet another post with erlang in the title ;).
Yeah. Well, look at it this way... if anyone asks about Erlang again, we can just point them to searchyc and they'll have all the info they'd ever care to read.

I still have "Programming Erlang" sitting on my shelf... I'll get to it someday.
I've been using G1 Central on my phone for a couple weeks now to make free calls. It's pretty awesome. Visual voicemail works great (minus the app downloading the voicemails to your sd card) and being able to sort everything online is really nice too. I'm hoping we get an official Google voice app with the cupcake update thats coming in April.
Oh man, I have a GrandCentral account from right before the acquisition. My number gets a lot of voicemails from collections agencies. For a while I had it forwarded to my office number, and something in the process must have confused their autodialers, because I'd get at least one dead call a week.

I never thought to sell the account on eBay!
I'm wondering if it's worth trying, or if I'll get scammed... does anyone have experience with this?
Master of one
Down-voters, he is also right.

It's common for dynamic languages to embed typing information in pointers as an optimization. For example, CLISP uses at least 2 bits to distinguish between common types. That way fixnum numbers can be recognized and added without slow memory accesses.

The result is that you get less bits for the address. Hence less addressable memory.
Java Decompilers: Ask HN
Which all Java Decompilers do you use? Which will you recommend?
Just providing the means to have a profile page is not enough to have a social network anymore. There had to be a continuous stream of information to keep users coming back (buy friendfeed, guys!). But then again Google always had success by keeping things simple...
it is no longer possible to create live html links in hacker new profiles. pg disabled that feature after spammers started using them as landing pages.

there are some older accounts which still have working links in the profiles, but only because they haven't changed them since before pg disabled this feature.
There are so many parties going on in parallel you need Erlang to keep up with them. Since every official party will have a line around the block, we might as well give up on them and just try to schedule the HN meetup so that it doesn't overlap with any other good unofficial events.

Union Park worked well for the last GeekAustin party.
Did You Know: BeautifulSoup's bits are rotting
This is so unfortunate. It's such a great piece of software that so many of us depend on.

It's really too bad that there's not enough money in it for Leonard to keep it up. But, I have no bitterness, just thanks!
I'm living in a country now that has four national languages. None of which are English, yet I know several people who've lived here for years and can't speak a word of any of those languages. English is international these days and will get you much much further then you might think.
hmmmm
Thank you so much for taking time to help me. I really appreciate it.
Dude, frack no. Having everything in a database means you are tied to the speed of disk, instead of the speed of ram. The biggest issue with being purely ram resident is handling multi-threaded updates across your ram resident dataset.

You could always use Erlang...
I'll be at sxsw... twitter @quellhorst
I've been using Grancentral ever since it was aquired by google, and its been great.

The main use was so that I didn't have to give out my personal cell phone number for work, and so that I didn't have to carry a second phone.

Having a separate voicemail box just for work has been great, and I've even used the call recording feature when someone was giving me very important detailed instructions.

No concerns with spam, and I haven't noticed any downtime, so I'd recommend it.

Would love to see more integration so I don't have a whole separate address book in Grandcentral...
No, it was a great read :-)
I like what you're doing with http://github.com/raganwald/homoiconic
200+ Windows 7 beta users surveyed: They like it. Quite a bit, actually.
Startup Weekend San Francisco 2 from April 3-5, 2009
I am looking for other developer's who will be going for Startup Weekend to partner up. I have signed up as a Back end Developer.
Not exactly. The general term for the system that captures your first page is "captive portal". The short version is they intercept your first Internet-bound web request and send you a HTTP redirect to their login site. Once you give the portal whatever it needs to authorize you the local firewall is configured to allow your traffic out.

Generally captive portals will leave your DNS alone. They don't really have a lot of choice about this: if they poison your name cache you won't be able to get to your home page. Windows used to (still may) hold on to names for a minimum period regardless of TTL. A fair number of laptops have custom DNS. Combine those two and you can almost always get correct recursive DNS and frequently UDP 53 out.
Really need a /ignore techcrunch.com article filter for HN.

Yeah, I know it displays here on the HTML page displayed in my browser, but it doesn't show in my RSS reader (Google Reader).
Huh? I don't see how you contradicted what I said.
Venture Capital Model Visualization
You can. But the user must keep the app running, i.e. cannot switch to another app or go to the homescreen. Switching off the screen (the power button), or answer (not initiating) phone calls is OK. Which is kind of a big limitation. But really has been OK for millions of users so far...
Libxml-ruby reaches 1.0
Ruby bindings for the super fast xml parser libxml2 reaches v 1 status.
Switzerland? Or is there another?
That's why you use intelligent caching.
All the statements of course 100% audited and true. Have I got some pills to sell you that will make you huge man!
There are not 5 million new startups each year. This number must be coming from some estimate of the number of new businesses.
A job board for hackers and passionate people.
Artificial life 'could be created within five years'
From Kauffman Index: http://www.kauffman.org/Details.aspx?id=898

"May 23, 2007 – While the rate of entrepreneurial activity has remained remarkably consistent over the past decade with nearly 465,000 people creating new businesses on average each month, subtle year-to-year shifts in the gender, demographic, geographic and ethnic make-up are changing the public face of the American entrepreneur. This is according to a national assessment of entrepreneurial activity by the Ewing Marion Kauffman Foundation."

(465,000)*(12)
This number is too high to be true!
One phone number for all your phones, for life.

I already have that. It's called a cellphone.
This was a useful, informative article. TechCrunch writes a lot of shitty things. This wasn't one of them.

I'm fine with TechCrunch rants, but unless you've got something interesting to say beyond "I dislike TechCrunch," save it, ignore the article, and move on.
My favorite feature of GrandCentral is that you listen in while the voicemail is being recorded and then jump in at any moment.
http://diffle-history.blogspot.com/
https://www.google.com/voice/about has a bunch of videos showing off the new features.

I must say, the new interface looks like a nice improvement over GC - although I'd love to see integration with my Gmail Inbox (Gmail Labs, anyone?)
There's always Socialstream: I keep hearing rumors about it.

Google Profiles don't make for a social network. It's an aggregator at most.
In addition, there's now an option when you dial your Google Voice number to just dial directly - the "Place Calls" video at https://www.google.com/voice/about demos it.
Wal-Mart (?) Plans to Market System for Digital Health Records