skysight-inc/HackerNews huggingface dataset:
Agreed. The Mac expenditure is just the beginning of my hesitation to jump on board the iPhone development bandwagon. With Android, I know I can make my applications available regardless of whether Apple thinks they are worthy of the store. And that one tiny bit of certainty is worth a huge amount to me.

I'm also much more fond of open platforms, but I didn't want to get all "Linux rules, Apple drools" as I reckon it's a personal choice rather than an objective business imperative.
Ask HN: Submitting to TC50. Vice/Virtue?
I am thinking of submitting my startup to the TC50. My startup is a novel idea, but, I don't need VC funding at all, in fact I don't want it.

I am not sure what the benefit would be aside from publicity which may just earn me some competition.

What do you guys think?
see also: http://skeptoid.com/episodes/4115 (Skeptoid Episode)
No, not at all. If you followed the first link he gave, the $1M figure comes from 11 different factors, of which "Opportunity Cost" is dead last.
Congrats to the core team and all of the contributors!

For those who haven't checked it out, the spec is surprisingly short (http://rack.rubyforge.org/doc/files/SPEC.html).
This is exactly what you want: http://piro.sakura.ne.jp/xul/_treestyletab.html.en

I have been using this for a few weeks, and it's wonderful.
I think your question is phrased in a somewhat misleading way. For starters, I gave 10% as a loose lower bound, not as the actual number. More importantly, the question implies that a user is active if and only if he/she syncs a file today.

There are a variety of things that can be used to define "active user". Logically, the point of defining "active user" is to differentiate between users who have a good chance of using a product/service again or on a regular basis or something like that (depends on the nature of your service), and users who almost certainly won't and are just taking up space in your user registry (or in our case, space on our servers as well). I won't go into any further details, but the number of people who do a file sync at least once a week is much higher than the number of people who do a file sync every day, and the number of people who do a file sync at least once a month is much higher than that. In addition, there are people who don't add or edit new files very often, but do frequently access their existing files, who aren't being counted in the approximate numbers I gave above. Anyway, going off of this qualitative "definition" of activity, I consider much, much more than 10% of our users to be active users.
Glue - Account Setup
The Last Experiment
Let's not forget our old friend "getfirefox.com" =)
Ditto. There is bountiful opportunity in the world for those who just open their eyes.

In the words of a sage, "Time is short, work is great, workers are lazy, the reward is great and the master is pressing." In the world there is a high demand and low supply of making this world we live in a better, more productive place. Those that help that get done will reap its rewards.

Good Luck. Open your eyes.
Math Trick: Calculating the Square Root by Hand
have you looked at the ndb backend for MySQL cluster? it seems like it would do what you need (that is, you can add nodes, in pairs to scale, and it can handle single-node failures)

another option, I guess, is to get a large dedicated server elsewhere, and use that as the db server; of course, you have latency issues then.
Sucked at first, but now I got 3-4 days without charge. Just takes time to break in, I feel like.
* I also think Microsoft appreciates a certain level of piracy as free advertisement.*

Exhibit 1: Vista 7
A Brief History of the English Language Part 3 - Orthography
I use Dropbox at my business school for every group project. I've probably signed up at least 20 other people.

Knowing that you'll never have to email another attachment is an incredible feeling.
ScienceInsider: Swine Flu Archives
There is a lot of exaggeration and hysteria going on right now surrounding this issue. Since I expect the HN crowd to be of higher than average intelligence, let's try to be a force of reason over hype. Sound good?
The obligatory link for any discussion of a report on a research result like that is the article by Peter Norvig, director of research at Google, on how to interpret scientific research.

http://norvig.com/experiment-design.html

Checking this blog entry point by point against Norvig's checklist would be good mental exercise.
Watch and make sure no edits come from anyone connected to Roche pharmaceuticals.

They hold the marketing rights to Tamiflu and stand to profit tremendously from this.
iTunes? Ugh. iTunes has to be one of the applications whose UI I hate most, and I am more or less forced to use it for Apple firmware.
Ask HN: Is there "server" software for a Windows Server?
For one reason or another I've been given the task of managing a Windows Server. I've never seen one before, looks just like the client. Apart from having to manage it through Remote Desktop, it does not seem to have any software on it, or for it that's accessible from within the system (there is "Manage Your Server", but it doesn't seem to do much for me).

I used a Windows XP client for a desktop some three years ago, but never touched the Server.

If anyone has any experience with I'd very much appreciate a lead in on:

- How do you set up SFTP?

- How do you set up a light-weight HTTP server?

- How do you set up Python + xCGI + Postgres?

- Is there some sort of a package manager or a browser for paid server software?

- How do you secure it, e.g. what do you use for a server firewall, permission isolation for web-facing software (sandboxing, maybe)?

- Where is the configuration kept and the logs written?

- Where is the documentation for all of the above?

Or more generally -- how do I make it all work?

Please be considerate, I know I'm a noob with this.
Twilio is sweet. Very easy to use, great documentation, and most importantly a well-designed API.
I think there's a bit of a quality control issue, or perhaps early batteries had problems. I have two G1s...a standard issue that arrived on release day, and a developer edition that I just got a few weeks ago. The former doesn't last a whole day of moderate usage with 3G enabled (but lasts about 1.5 days of moderate usage with 3G disabled). The latter easily lasts all day with 3G enabled. I charge every night, and I've never found it to give out by the end of day on days when I remember to charge it (and when I have forgotten to charge it, I've been pleased by how fast it'll charge up).

I have no complaints at all about battery life on the newer phone. The older one was disappointing, and I was afraid I was stuck with something that would never really be great.

Someone else suggested a "break in" period, but my older phone never got better after extensive use. The new phone was good from day one.
I second this. As I did when this article came up before, I recommended everyone here give it a shot (with an example of how it makes life more efficient):

http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=563917
Dear Fellow Rubyists ...
It will last a 6-8 hours of fairly heavy surfing (no video, 1 or 2 podcasts) on the cell data network, or a full day of normal use/non-use. I usually leave wifi and GPS off, and haven't really had any problems w/battery life.
Watch and make sure no edits come from anyone connected to Michael Bay.

This totally sounds like a viral ad campaign for his latest shitty movie.
Resources for monitoring the swine flu epidemic
the source code is at http://svn.coderepos.org/share/lang/haskell/nario

it looks reasonably clean, I suspect much more so than the original (c/asm/low level lang #3) code that was the actual super mario game :)
Roche makes one of the two drugs that can treat this outbreak, and you're talking smack about them? That's tasteless.

Oseltamivir is not available OTC. People that want it need permission from their doctors to get it, at least in the US. In Mexico, emergency procedures are being taken, and its distribution is being handled appropriately.
PCI Express Solid State Drive, faster than SATA
Fiction? Non-fiction?

I can't tell.
what shell commander is this? Looks like midnight commander but with the windows context menu! pretty slick
I am following this course in a blog you might want to check out

http://gregorykaiser.wordpress.com/

there is also a very good Google group for the class

http://groups.google.com/group/iphone-appdev-auditors/topics

I hope this helps you with the class

Greg
First, I'd like to note, that the whole broken-windows theory is alive and well. I said bastard, you said fuck. I bet you wouldn't have said it, if I hadn't said bastard. That's not anything more than an observation about humans in general, it's not meant as anything more.

In regards to your protest at the level of my response. My response is appropriate, but it is, indeed, non-typical. I purposely chose to take off the gloves here, rather than water down my speech because the watered down speech that is so typically used in these kinds of discussions has confused you and many others.

Just like abstraction in software, much of our society abstracts away the really important bits. Just like in software, this can be abused.

Anytime you calmly and rationally talk about adding taxes to do this program or that program, you need to remember that there are men with guns that will deprive people of their lives or their liberty unless they comply. Too often, you forget that because it's abstracted away by the system we have. I feel that such a profound imposition of your will over mine is indeed cause for less watered down speech than usually used. If that made you uncomfortable, than I'm happy about that. That was it's intent.

When you then go on to say that you want to use that awesome power regardless of whether or not the original catalyst is a valid one, because "it's a good idea", I have to do what I can to get through to you how dangerous that sort of thinking is.
By the way I am getting farther faster than with the books I had. It's worth watching
Just my personal opinion: I don't want to see this on HN. I get enough of this from the regular media outlets.
Lowpings Game Server Provider In-Depth Review
Lowpings.net was founded just six years ago in 2003. Countless numbers of European Gamers who are mostly professionals, use lowpings highly managed hosting and as it is such a great service the gaming community tend to stay with Lowpings purely because the company has built up so much positive respect.

In addition to professional gamers, Lowpings address the casual gaming community which as we all know is a bigger market. LowPings offer great new products, high quality services and the support could not be any better as well as providing great discount prices.

Four Years of astounding Game hosting in a nutshell.

- In 2003, Lowpings was founded.

-Later in 2005 after establishing itself on its territory Lowpings became Europe’s largest professional host.

- In July 2007, Lowpings acquired and expanded by GameData, Inc.

- Just 4 months later in November, Lowpings launched a new hosting portal...
It sounds like he is capable of acceptable work for your team but is not performing to his earlier level: do you understand why? What's his side of the story? The best outcome would be to enable him to continue as a fully contributing member unless there are additional facts that indicate otherwise.

Is there someone that both you and he trust that you could use to mediate a serious conversation about how to resolve the situation? The 15% founder should be willing to sell you back 12-14/15's of his stock since a normal vesting period would be four to five years from a standing start. He may not be willing to do so.
Curing insomnia using anti-placebo.  (Placebo makes it worse!)
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Supply_and_demand
Note: the other is Relenza, made by GSK.

Also, apparently, KPCB had a $200 million pandemic disease fund, which strikes me as hysterical: http://uk.reuters.com/article/governmentFilingsNews/idUKN244...
Customer Service? Ask a Volunteer
From a species standpoint, I think the good of the many always trumps the good of the few.

I also concede that the intentions of both sides are honorable. I think there are puppet masters who use environmental issues to effect trade negotiations or as cover to take more power, but the average hacker news reader, I think has honorable intentions.

The disagreement lies in what constitutes the good of the many. What was so attractive about this article for me was that the articles author attempted to open up that discussion a little more than "is it warming or isn't it".
How do you have a situation where you make a funding deal, the guys only come through with half, and they still get their equity share?
The article is a bit alarmist. Although "humans have no natural immunity", it looks like it responds well to drugs.

I am not losing much sleep over thoughts of dying from this.
Local CPAN for the company
can *.flu spread to plants?

go vegetarian!
AskHN: If you were to describe this to a slow, first year CS student, how would you do that?
what are you talking about? illiteracy rates were lower before public education started. You can make claims about differences in population if you want, but purely on a percent basis you're wrong.
the point is that it's hypocritical from the egalitarian soapbox that the people stand on.
Congrats! Sounds like you successfully built a minimum viable product and you're getting a response from the market.

How did you let people know about your site? To me, the most interesting aspect of this post is that you had thousands of pageviews within 24 hours of launch.
Those looking to evade and pass through have a much easier job than subs looking to detect others.

Drug smuggling is astoundingly successful. When there is a "big" bust, it is on the news. That's not very often. They miss 90%+ of the shipments.

The transport is only one part of the equation. Millions are in prison for drug related crimes. The risk to human life from prohibition is far greater than the potential cost of increased addiction (though evidence points towards decreased addiction with programs focused on treatment rather than prison)
More food for the poisonous group-think infecting my generational and cultural peers. Why engage with the arguments of people that disagree with you, when they're just stupid and/or evil? Best just to mock them and revel in a comfortable sense of smug superiority. Everybody agrees with you, so your dishonest behavior will be reinforced and rewarded.
I learned a lot from this article, namely that if you want people to talk about your talks after you give them, add porn. It seems to be more effective than technical content, which just puts the audience to sleep.

Here's another example: http://use.perl.org/~Alias/journal/31986
I'm perfectly fine with this appearing on HN because I don't pay that much attention to regular media outlets anymore and I might actually pick up something relevant, useful or just interesting in the comments here.
Beginners Beekeeping
Are you looking to learn how to start beekeeping? Even if you are a beginner to beekeeping, now you can learn all the beekeeping tips, tricks and secrets like professional beekeepers! For more info, visit Ultimate Beekeeping at: http://www.ultimatebeekee
Rodan and Fields
A great source for rodan and fields information
For the lulz :) (Read: it's all about ego)
Well written.

Though it seems the whole article could have been said more concisely as:

"Guido's decision is wrong because it causes Python to use more resources than necessary in certain cases." [where resources is any one of: stack, heap, file descriptors, etc.]

Which is non-ideal, in isolation, certainly. But Guido's whole post was about saying there are trade-offs, and he doesn't like the trade-off made in the other direction. (Misleading stack traces, etc.) Guido does seem to understand both sides of the argument. But ultimately it is a design decision. And he made it.
I tried to summarize Marshall's argument. Let me know if it makes sense, and answers your question.
I think you'll note that everyone involved in this discussion would much rather be discussing the content of the presentation, which, so far as i have seen, has not been discussed.

So, sure, people are talking about the presentation. They're just not talking about the technical content of the presentation.

I don't think that's a winning proposition.
Dear god, not again. Not a month can go by without another gender debate that goes nowhere and has no resolution at all. I've seen these crop up in every programming community I've monitored over the last ten years.

Instead of whining about other people's behavior, perhaps people should do things to tackle the inequalities they perceive (such as the fine Girl Geek Dinners or "do a Amy Hoy" and put out some damn good blog posts and apps and become well known and respected in the community).

I see the irony in that I'm whining about someone else's behavior, but I don't want anything to be "fixed" as such.. I just wish these smart, decent people would get on with doing great work instead of losing time on a crazy argument that always goes nowhere.
It spreads human to human, not pig to human. And you can't get it eating pork (so says the CDC).

http://www.cdc.gov/media/transcripts/2009/t090423.htm
It flies Linux.
Seems like a bad idea, doing so might put the already successful one in jeopardy.

I would say a better option would be, if possible and compatible, to merge the technology, research and already done work from the previous one to the current one. I know this is not possible always, but if it is.
Twitter’s Real Edge: It’s not Scary
Does H.P. Need a Dose of Anarchy?
California is now divided more East-West than North-South
My highschool calculus teacher told us his own experience with Escalante. We were in Northern California, not too far from Hiram Johnson, and the calculus program there was considered a failure. Escalante made all his students sign contracts that they wouldn't participate in any extracurricular activities (like sports, clubs, etc..) to be admitted into his calculus program. When he tried to do the same at Hiram Johnson, nobody wanted to join his classes. Apparently, he was also a hard man to work with and needed absolute control over his work (as stated in the article). Though his system obviously worked, imagine having to work with a cocky person who wants absolute fine grained control over everything that goes on in your office. Even if it is successful, most people would probably be more than angry.
No, I would like to be able to write extensible plugins for the GMail web application. Or make modifications; e.g., have my starred messages be stuck to the top of my inbox. Code advanced filters and have them ping some PHP code of mine with relevant info. Make a 'dashboard'. A list of undelivered packages. etc.
I don't see how the preview box is any faster than conventional tab usage:

result miss case: read the preview, decide you don't like it, go back (no difference)

result hit case: read the preview, decide you like it, click "yes I want to read this in the window" (less work by one step)

I'm also not sold on the point of ubiquity -- it seems to me that punching most of this stuff into google already provides what ubiquity promises. Directing this traffic at search engines gives users more opportunity to select the implementation they like (say Yahoo search does something better than Google). Pulling it away from the default search provider also means they're directing less traffic at Google, meaning less (potential) income for the project. This clearly shouldn't be a primary consideration but I don't see a win in any direction.

Reichenstein also states that tabs could not be the web’s next biggest thing as tabbed browsing isn’t such a big deal in many people’s minds.

Tabs are six+ years old (or so). There's probably no more easy growth. People that are not proficient enough with computers don't want them or care about them: my friend who lives on a farm and believes every pop-up that appears on his screen will never benefit from them, and that's fine. However, it would be entirely expected to find out that the take rate for tabs with the 12-20 set is dramatically higher -- kids use computers differently than their parents do and aren't encumbered by the same analogies that their parents use to understand what is going on on the screen.

I contend that people will grow to the tools if you provide them. I'm not convinced anything but the tree-tabs touched on here are actually forward progress for the browser.
T-Mobile lays ground for embedded SIMs
Ask HN: What is the name for this pattern?
I've found myself using this pattern in Javascript a lot lately (simplified to show its essential characteristics.)

worker = function () {
doSomeWork();
if (isDone()) finishUp();
else window.setTimeout(worker, 0);
}

The basic idea is to use window.setTimeout to schedule another execution of the worker function at the end of the current command queue. While it's not threaded, per se, if your "doSomeWork" functions are small enough, it may as well be for many applications. It allows you to write recursive operations in Javascript, without throwing the "too much recursion" error when the data gets big. And, while it's generally not as fast as straight iteration, it will avoid the "Script on this page is taking too long" error, and it doesn't lock the browser, so it "feels" faster.

For operations that you can expect to be slow, or for doing a lot of different actions on a busy page, this pattern is great.

The only problem is that I don't know what it's called, or if it even has a name. I saw a page by Douglas Crockford calling this "eteration", but I think that also means something else, and it never stuck anyhow. It's sort of like tail recursion, in that it is a sort of recursion that doesn't tie up the call stack, but unlike tail recursion, it doesn't track a return value, and it doesn't block the program while it's running. The closest analogy I can think of is putting sleep(0) in a loop so that the OS can step in.

Does it already have a name? If not, got a suggestion?
Medicine goes digital: the transformation of biology into an information science
How do you know that she's not also "doing something?" Actually, she is. She is an active developer, and the co-chair of a back-breakingly large, totally volunteer run conference, Open Source Bridge, taking place in Portland in late June. (OSCON-like in content, I won't too deep about the event here, but I do in other HN posts, feel free to crawl my comments.)

I do not know her personally, but we have enough peers in common, that I know she also does "Amy Hoy's" (I like that phrase, btw :D ) and regularly puts out pretty cool tools (I'm pretty sure she's a key contributor to Calagator (Ruby events calendar)) and blog posts.

But even if she didn't...

I think if you witness something you're not comfortable with, and everybody else is quiet about it, it's actually brave AND valuable to speak up. I know it gets old reading about it on Hacker News, heck, I agree with these gender-posts most of the time, and I never vote them up, just because I wince in fear at the threads that happen.

I'm sick of the debate, but even sicker of the reality.

Still, I identify with whatever that sensation it is you feel (petercooper) when you see a gender topic on HN. My heart sinks, too. But I still admire the bloggers who take the time write a post, knowing full well they'll get tons of cruel, off-topic comments from strangers (so far she's been called a whore, ideally removed by now), and bite the bullet and write anyway ...

[apologies, i lightly edited my last line right before somebody quoted it]