skysight-inc/HackerNews huggingface dataset:
Yes, I definitely think we need screenshots (too lazy to sign up and get them myself). There used to be a graphic on their website (gone now) that showed an offer looking like a decline/agree license page. Under it they claimed their text is optimized for conversions--in other words, getting people to click.

Edited: the graphic isn't visible on their pages, but still available on their servers; see GuessWhy's comment:

http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=5093242

Also, if this company pitched a new product to the investors, and then used the funding, or at least the branding, to run their old product (especially one deemed spammy or scammy by a majority of HN readers), it sounds like this company has figured out how to game the angel investing game.
Because it is a grand human tradition to show extra kindness, attention and indulgence to the young, that they might be equipped to build a better world.

Someone helping me with a project is nice. Someone helping you with a project is an investment in the future. My neuroplasticity wanes with every passing year. Your mind remains limber. I am encumbered by obligations and debts, limiting my flexibility. You have infinitely more options.

Helping you is just a better bet than helping me. You're still on the launchpad, fuel tank still full. If there's something simple, like an encouraging comment or a thoughtful correction, that can be done to help you meet a wonderful trajectory, we should absolutely do it.
What Mr. Al-Kabaz would have done is secure a lawyer before he signed the NDA.
Agreed; I expected it to be the story of Therac-25 (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Therac-25)

It was involved in at least six accidents between 1985 and 1987, in which patients were given massive overdoses of radiation, approximately 100 times the intended dose. These accidents highlighted the dangers of software control of safety-critical systems, and they have become a standard case study in health informatics and software engineering.
It sounds like this was inspired by a single incident, so is this really as large a problem as described? Also, for a fun game, replace the word "attention" with "money."
Apple makes it very easy to create location aware reminders. So I don't think this is the problem you think it is.
Tell me why I’m an idiot for having this opinion by tweeting @tomdale.

Off topic, but this is genius.

I never understood why everybody copied that "you should follow me" rudeness of a line.

Not thinking too high about yourself is how you win people's goodwill.
This is the first I've heard of ESDF instead of WASD for gaming. At least on this keyboard I'm using, it makes more sense, because F has a tiny ridge on the bottom to find by touch, but none of the wASD keys do.
This is an ongoing bad attitude, actually. This was just the latest example. Kids who post their age often have their comments devolve into moronic arguments about whether their age should really matter.
I'll go even further and say:

I want to be able to turn existing stuff off in Settings. I don't need a Spotlight home screen to the left, I don't want the ugly notification centre that I accidentally trigger and never use, and neither will I ever touch Newsstand or Stocks or Weather or Siri. How hard can it be to present a list of on/off switches - some of them exist already for parental controls.
Now doesn't kill your battery and although some Androids don't have as good battery as the iphone, many are just as good and some are much better. Honestly if battery is the only thing holding you back, get a Razr Maxx and enjoy double the battery of an iphone. I'm still using an HTC Sensation with Cyanogen/Jellybean and I get about 2 days of battery with moderate use.

In any case, the article's use case is just one example. In general the interoperability and the deep integration allowed by android provides many great features that long time apple users just don't even realize they are missing.

Sharing anything between apps is one perfect example and by itself is reason enough for me to never consider iOS ever again.
Isn't the problem that your phone should make the reminders for you?
Considering I started on the early PCs (XT), I'm too used to the CTRL key where it is... I have a real problem on lenovo, and similar keyboards where the Fn key is in the corner. I also discovered, I favor the right shift, which makes a lot of mini/htpc keyboards a pain... the one I am on right now has the shift to the right of the up arrow.
GNU sort is designed to sort on disk though. If you actually watch it working on a giant file, you'll see it generating lots and lots of files in /tmp containing the merge lists.

This is because quicksort obviously requires fast random access to the whole arrays, and (at least when it was written) /usr/bin/sort would be expected to be able to quickly sort data that can't fit in memory.

So... if anything I think this is evidence to my point: in the performance regime, you have to match the algorithm choice to the hardware. Specifically here: sort is making up for the lack of memory by exploiting the comparatively (relative to virtual memory) fast streaming behavior of storage media.

Notably, stateful filesystem I/O is also an area where Haskell tends to fall down. I'm not at all sure a Haskell merge sort of the form used in GNU sort would do well at all, though I'm willing to be proven wrong.
Garry, you've spoken up a lot here to defend IM, and that's fine, they probably need defending. However, it would've been nice to disclose in this thread that you're a YC partner.

I know, it's in your profile, and easy to find, as I did. But I'm a newbie here, I don't know personalities, and your posts made it sound like you're some Joe-User happy with IM's product, which isn't really the case.
I agree with experience being fundamental to ability, but being a teenager does not mean that you have not had experience(albeit not all real world). For instance, a computer science graduate who is 23 and has only been programming while at university has four years experience. However, I have been programming since I was eight years old, and as a result have nine years experience. I am not trying to say that I have am a better developer then the graduate, but even being five years younger, I would have more than double the amount of experience.

Also, I have met plenty of people who below the age of 15 that were invited to Oxford and Cambridge for maths related events, and they had a greater ability than most the people in the room. So yes I think experience does play a major part, but it is not the only factor. If you have the dedication, then age is nothing but a number.
I explained to my girlfriend why I was laughing and she didn't find it as funny as I did.
There is basically no such thing as "quiet environment", unless it's a library. There will be some noise from the neighbors, from the street or whatever. I find that I can tune out easily enough if the noise is beyond my control. If, on the other hand, it's someone whom I can ask to keep it down (but would rather not to), then noise cancelling headphones is the best option there is.
You might have a perspective problem. A mobile device that expects you to "think critically"? Come on now.

Some people enjoy building and tweaking PCs. Most don't. Some people enjoy tinkering on their cars. Most don't. Some people enjoy tinkering with their phone, "thinking critically" while using it; most don't.

I enjoy endless tinkering with servers, caches, micro-optimizations, and so forth. But I can't stand tinkering with my tools -- I prefer to tinker with other things using my tools. I consider my phone a tool.

Not everyone is like me, and not everyone is like you. There's no right or wrong, just preference.
Don't worry, I'm not reading HN articles from 2010, so it's a rediscovery for me when this events occur.
I think it helps with the point, there's been a large influx of reposts lately.
I never read "you should follow me" as particularly rude, maybe a little self-important, but not full on rude. Once you start trying to get followers you've pretty much implanted yourself in the realm of self-importance.

I do agree that this is just brilliant.
Except it doesn't, because Rand talks about internal docs (not public facing), Adam talks about his agency, Sujan talks about smart competitor/backlink analysis, Ross talks about technical Penguin recovery, Wil and Adam talk about outreach methods, and Paddy talks about a penalty recovery.

Hmmmm.....
flag&FLAG_VALUE will be FLAG_VALUE or 0, so unless FLAG_VALUE==TRUE the answer could be wrong.

Suggest (flag&FLAG_VALUE), or, if you need the expression to be of type bool, ((flag&FLAG_VALUE)!=0) or (!!(flag&FLAG_VALUE)).
Among the bleeding edge tech community, Deezer and Spotify are considered the poster children. It's interesting how big Pandora's following is, and how this will change over time as awareness for the newer services builds among the general population.

It will also be interesting to see a trend comparison of pure internet radio platforms, like Pandora and Songza.
Talking of [ad] on Jeff's blog, I used to always be amused at the Atlassian ads I think I recall routinely seeing.
Youtuber/Scientist running a crowdfunding campaign to build an awesome lab
First off, like pretty much every one else here I think Aaron shouldn't have been prosecuted in the first place.

> Using these kind of plea-bargaining tactics when you know the suspect is suicidal is cruel.

If your point is that you should prosecute someone who is suicidal differently from someone who is not, wrt prosecuting them then I'd strongly disagree.

If you do prosecute them less severely then where is the line?
What about pregnant women, stress can cause miscarriges.
what about old people, stress can cause them to have heart attacks
What about overweight people, stress can cause them to die from a heart attack.

What if someone is faking being suicidal? You can never know for sure until they actually die, if they attempt suicide and survive then it might just be a hoax to get out of prosecution.

I think the world is better served when everyone knows they will be treated equally.
Show HN: 10 Day iOS App project
Hi all, I wrote this app over about ten days worth of free time over a year ago. It's just a bit of fun but having been inspired by the weekend projects on HN I finally got around to releasing it! I hope to write up the process as a blog post soon.
Something like this already exists, albeit in an early stage: http://www.legitscript.com/products/IBUPROFEN (see the product search input on the left-hand side)
> people who really hate Google

I don't think they hate it. They are just incompetent and desperate for reducing deficit. They see that Google has a lot of money and scheme to take some it.
My perspective on smart phones changed hugely when I recently travelled to a new city. Suddenly all of the features which I had paid little to no attention to before, such as maps, directions, business search, and recommendations, all became crucial. It's the difference between going to a crap restaurant and being overcharged, just because you're not a local and don't know these things, and going to a place which serves great food at a good price. The better your phone is at this sort of seamless deduction, the smoother your travel experience is and the more you can focus on more important problems. So for me it's an efficiency problem, one which is only going to become more important as international travel and tourism increase.
I agree that we need to keep contrast in mind when designing, but too much contrast can be just as hard on the eyes. That cream on black text hurts my eyes more than most of the low-contrast sites that it highlights. Furthermore, putting shadows on an entire block of text is terrible for legibility. As a site focusing heavily on legibility, it could certainly use some fine-tuning in its typography and color.

I will agree that many of these sites, including this DN site, need to work on contrast and legibility and contrast.
Age part should not be thrown away.
There are lots of young people out there, myself included, that are in need of advice, tips and help( even saying that something I've done is wrong and bringing some arguments, suggestions and whatever you thing it is useful is better than nothing, at least I know where to start improving my skills and work)
PG accepted them into YC, funds them and defends them in public. If that's not an "active proponent" then I wonder how you define that term?
While I feel your frustration with iOS apps in general, concurrency is not a silver bullet. I can't say anything specifically about what's making certain iOS applications slow, but I actually think it's probably more related to Core Data and file IO.

I can also say their new concurrency technology (Grand Central Dispatch) is one of the most brilliant pieces of technology I've seen in a while. The reasons why are pretty technical, but I think many people who have experience in concurrency would agree that it's pretty good.
direct link to his campaign: http://www.indiegogo.com/NurdRage
Haxe implementation of Knuth Morris Pratt for partial searches
The problem is the business isn't paying for a single programmer's value, it is paying for two. The only time I have known pair programming actually worked pretty good was when a senior would take a junior under their wing when the junior was first hired. This would facilitate quick ramp-up for the junior to know all practices and the vast amount of things that are not documented (or updated). Keep in mind this only lasted a couple of months max, and not necessarily every day.
I don't understand all the moralizing going on in this thread.

VC is about funding the companies that could make a lot of money. When did we start expecting them to be the morality police?

Sure, if YC wants to build up a reputation for funding "honorable" startups, then they can choose to do so (and will choose to do so to the extent that they think it makes business sense). The comments here that say "This might be bad for YC's image and hurt YC long term" are all well and good. But lots of them amount to "this is bad and you should feel bad", and these just seem disconnected from the reality of market economics.

If YC doesn't fund some scuzzy but profitable company, someone else will. You can't solve job-outsourcing by asking companies not to outsource jobs, because the companies that play along will just get their asses kicked by those who don't. If you want to solve this problem, you have to do it at some other level (usually the laws and taxes level).

It's unreasonable to demand that YC pass on profitable businesses just because we don't like what those businesses are doing. I agree that IM doesn't seem to be making the world a better place, but that's not a problem that gets fixed by asking everyone to cooperate in starving them out.

Perhaps there's a line at which it's worthwhile to call out people for following the incentives that the market has given them, but I think this line is probably a lot closer to the "murder" end of the spectrum than the "installer checkboxes" end.

(Expecting downvotes, think I'm okay with that.)
I agree - this is a very useful feature. I've been a fan of Kid's Corner[1] on my Windows Phone since day one.

[1] http://www.windowsphone.com/en-US/how-to/wp8/basics/set-up-k...
Yeah, pretty much every "I'm X and I made X" thread I've seen has turned into a battle between people flaming the person for being young and the people praising them.
InstallMonetizer will tank if they relied on opt-in, but will make bank if they rely on opt-out.

Just like the US Postal Service if direct mailing was opt-in instead of opt-out. What's your point?
One Strategy, One P&L
Good point. But maybe you could use Google Chrome for that?
Yep - the thing about these numbers are that they're obviously based on registered users, not active users. For example, which Spotify may have 33 million users, only 20 million of those are active. Pandora may have an impressive 150 million registered users, but I imagine the drop off rate of active users is relatively high given the increase in popularity of other services.
And the top 3 apps I use many times per day: email, maps, calendar are way way better on Android at least if you are using gmail. Without exaggeration, if you use gmail the main experience on Android crushes iOS.
Is that the same JSTOR that refused to press charges? You can't really base your argument on his felony charges from the entity that didn't press charges.
Money. They'll dress it up in many other ways, but it's all down to money.
https://github.com/greboide/emacs-gestures
I really want to learn more about this.

I think there's some level of cognitive bias here with respect to social interaction preferences.

I certainly prefer to hang out with folks in a social setting compared to sitting in an office all day. I understand folks who prefer to do this in a work environment from a camaraderie and a "I'm not in a cave" perspective. That's totally fine and understandable.

But from a real, practical standpoint - are folks that "prefer" to be in an open setting actually more productive than those not?

What type of programming lends itself better to a distraction-filled environment?

How does "culture" fit into the distraction equation, other than "we tolerate more distraction-killing productivity here than elsewhere"?

(We have a chat room where we try and put all side discussions, so folks can virtually "overhear" conversations and chime in if applicable).

I concede that there could be some people who will get so antsy in an office all day that the mosh pit-style work environment "feels" better. I'm not discounting that some folks prefer to be in a noisy environment. I just question whether or not they're actually more productive there or that the organization is better off in total with a noisy environment.

The difficulty I have is that I cannot find any studies that show that a distraction-filled environment creates more knowledge-worker productivity than a quiet one. Mountains of studies scream the opposite.

Personally, I'd rather find other ways to channel that ADHD energy in a more productive manner. :D
We are a startup operating from Belgium and we are using Avangate (http://www.avangate.com/online-payment-solutions/) for our product RBLWatch (https://www.rblwatch.eu/) and a few other things.

It supports recurring fees, and manage the VAT and currency issues for you. It takes those awful banks solutions away. Integration with our PHP code base went very easily.
And, in the end, we only issue one invoice.

I definitively recommend.

On the other side, Ogone is just... too 90ties. And it is really hard to deal with subscription and recurring fees.
> Starting a company is an emotional roller-coaster which becomes much easier when you have someone to share the experiences with

This is the argument I hate the most. It's up to you how much of a roller coaster something truly is. For example, I can start a successful side business selling apps. At first, it doesn't pull in much money, but after I work with it for a few years I can hire my first employee, then another, then another. The entire pace of growth is entirely up to you in most types of entrepreneurship with the most notable exception of the VC model which focuses on growth over sustainability.

My gripe with the "startup crowd" is that all companies are viewed with the same lens as the hyper-growth VC-backed category. Even the word "startup" has been co-opted and made synonymous to this type. Looks like folks want to co-opt the entire concept of company to mean this too.
Profit or earnings?
Depression is a monster, and it is more common than we think in the startup pressure-cooker. And nobody talks about it because you have to put up a facade of invincibility to woo investors, employees, and the press.

I had one startup friend confide that he had sought professional help for the stress he was under, and I thought he was very wise for doing so. Why, when I was heading into a dark depression while building a previous startup did I not seek help?

We need to support each other and destigmatize seeking help.
Why not be supportive and friendly to everyone? I always find the "say it to their face" rule is a good one for formulating even negative comments. Rather than channeling your inner comic book guy, it helps you think of how to state something unpleasant in a constructive, polite way.
At Aaron's memorial this past weekend, his partner, Taren, shed some light on what he was going through in his final years:
http://mretc.net/~cris/swartz-transcripts/taren-transcript.t...

> For a long time we didn't talk about the case very much. He wanted to protect me and he wanted to cordon it off from the rest of his life. He was worried that I would be subpoenaed, or that his other friends would be subpoenaed, and so he kept it all to himself. He kept all of the stress and the anger and the fear to himself.

> In December there was a hearing that I went to with him -- the trial was delayed because another hearing at this hearing -- the decision was made to delay the trial until April. And afterwards I -- we came out of the courtroom and I tried to give him a hug, and he pushed me away. And he said, "Not in front of Steve Heymann. I don't want to show Steve Heymann that."

The obvious, reflexive assessment of Aaron's situation is that he faced (or believed he was facing) an unsurmountable sentence and challenge, and that that fear was enough to cause him to commit suicide. But there's likely more to it than that...it wasn't just the fear or the hopelessness, but the isolation and other inconveniences that was a part of the struggle. Maybe Aaron felt ready to face the consequences, as they existed on paper (the charges, trial, and possible jail sentence) but the unexpected load of paranoia and loneliness, as Taren describes it, was something that ended up being insurmountable.

Of course, from the outside, it's easy to say, "Well, he should've realized he really wasn't alone. And that others were willing to fight along with him." But it's always easier to make that rational assessment from the outside.
I'm uncomfortable with the comparison to ragequitting. However, a few points resonated quite strongly with me.

we should have been outraged. I am gutted that I did not contribute to his defense in any way, either financially or by writing about it here. I blindly assumed he would prevail, as powerful activists on the side of fairness, openness, and freedom are fortunate enough to often do in our country. I was wrong.

I too was wrong about this. While I don't know how much my support would have mattered, I didn't do much to support him. I can and will offer support to others.

The idea that Aaron killing himself was a viable strategy, more than going on to prevail in this matter and so many more in his lifetime, makes me incredibly angry.

My thoughts on this are still developing and I can't articulate anything finer than what Jeff wrote.
"That will only happen if you, yes you, reading this; go to your representatives and write, call, and send snail mail."

Any role for foreigners? Which body to make a modest monetary donation to?

UK perspective: Trespass + Computer Misuse Act Section 1, so we are talking 6 months/£2000 if it ever went to court, which it probably would not have.