skysight-inc/HackerNews huggingface dataset:
My simple, genuine question is: how did this happen?

I mean, Microsoft has huge resources, and presumably does testing with focus groups, etc. They must test these devices with potential consumers, and it's not rocket science to do some sampling to determine how many units will sell, to get a very rough ballpark figure.

How could Microsoft mis-estimate the market on a scale of this magnitude? This isn't just a random extra camera or cellphone model that maybe doesn't sell so well. I honestly don't understand how a company this large, could get it this wrong.
The fact that other society models are worse isn't relevant to my analysis. Capitalism is so far the best societal model, but that does not imply perfection.

Monopolies arising naturally do not imply that, for the society, the monopolistic status is the most efficient. It is the most efficient for the monopolist. Think of it as a local maximum. This is microeconomics 101.

If an investment in investigation produces mostly positive externalities, then the investor will not recoup his investment, even if the end result is better for the society as a whole. As such, these investments will not occur in free form capitalism, even though they would be positive for the society as a whole. I'm purposely removing risk from the analysis, as it does not affect the conclusion.
> We've been doing concurrency for many years now; it's called pthreads.

Sometimes, the major advances come when fresh ideas are infused from the outside. In Darwin's case it was his geological work that inspired his theory. In concurrency maybe it will be ideas from neuroscience.

> No radically different solution to concurrency is magically going to appear tomorrow: programmers _need_ to understand concurrency, and work with existing systems.

The environment is changing. In 2007, the oxygen levels started increasing, single threaded CPU scaling hit the wall. It has gone from doubling every 2 years to a few % increases per year.

We are only at the beginning of this paradigm shift to massively multi-core CPUs. Both the tools and the theory are still in their infancy. In HW there are many promising advances being explored, such as GPUs, Intel Phi, new FPGAs, and projects like Parallella.

The software side also requires new tools to drive these new technologies. Maybe a radical new idea, but more likely some evolved form of CSP, functional, flow-Based, and/or reactive programming models from the 70s, that didn't work with the HW environment at the time will fill this new niche.

For example, one of the smartest guys I know working on a neuromorphic engineering where he's creating a ASIC with thousand of cores now and may evolve to (b)millions. If this trilobite emerges on top, whatever language is used to program it might have been terrible in the 70s or for your "existing systems" but it may be the future of programming.
With the iPhone, everything (device, software, services) are from Apple.

With Android, Google provides parts that different device manufacturers can use to augment their device. Manufacturers can use their own hardware and add whatever software they want to Android.

Not a great analogy, though -- especially since my initial impression was that it only worked on Android while Square was for iOS.

A better analogy would probably be "Stripe's API + Square's Hardware".
Surely there is an argument that if it's called infrequently enough that cache misses on the LUT are a problem, then it's also called so infrequently that its performance is irrelevant.
Harpers Magazine published a much better written article that discusses this same Scotsman along with an American who achieved some slight fame for his fasting around the beginning of the 20th century. In addition, the author writes about his own fairly significant fasts.

http://www.scribd.com/doc/95722979/Starving-Your-Way-to-Vigo...

After reading that article and doing a little bit of further research online, I tried a pair of fasts. The first was a week, followed a few months later by one of 10 days. My experience was very similar to what the author describes. That is, I felt good during the fast after the miserable 2nd day. Coming off the fast was no problem, either. Food was actually not a significant temptation during the fast and I found the discipline aspect to be much easier than the couple of standard diets I've ever tried.

I'm tall and about 50 pounds overweight (~200 lbs would be my target weight). In the 10 day fast I lost roughly a pound per day, but for me the weight came back within just a few weeks. I suspect that to have the best results I'd have to continue my fast for 5-6 weeks.

In fact, I only broke my fast because I was leaving for a road trip vacation in which I had to drive. My focus was actually fine and I was able to write software with no problems during my fast, but wasn't willing to experiment with long stretches of driving.

I'm actually looking forward to my next fast which I hope I can make last at least several weeks.
I really wish he did. I think one of the greatest disservices he does himself is not shipping working code for the examples in his presentation. We've seen what and we're intrigued, but ship something that shows how so we can take the idea and run with it.
Well, unless this display comes with a MacBook Pro, I think that's relevant.
Thats like saying your iPad is worthless because non of the OSX apps work on it

If MS had the insane push of apps that iOS did your statement would not be an issue
Disclaimer: I wasn't involved in this particular bug at all so I'm speaking generally.

We definitely don't play the blame game but we do keep track of bug statistics so we know where best to spend our time and effort. It can be useful to know that projects using framework X have more issues than framework Y or that maybe we should arrange to run some security classes at office Z.

Bugs like this one are fixed with the help of the product team, they're usually the ones writing and pushing the fix (since they know the project best) and it's a good way to get some practical security experience spread around the organization (and increase awareness).

We do write post-mortems for serious issues to delve into the root cause and to help stop it from happening again. We have a lot of initiatives in place to improve the security of our products overall through both awareness raising (training, newsletters, security puzzles) and technology changes (scanners, static analysis, framework hardening).

P.S We're always looking for security people to join us at Google (send me your resume, email in profile) or by bug hunting for bugs to submit to our vulnerability reward program.
First of all, yes, I think most people would be unsure of whether or not they are expected to tip in that situation.

Second of all, "standing up for yourself" would be verbally nudging the customers as to whether they wanted to tip or not, as he did.
Publicly tweet-shaming them is, in my opinion, something else entirely, and not worthy of receiving any kind of support from the owner.
Two months is an awfully short research project. Guess with results like the Kin, they saw the writing on the wall. Microsoft should have told Verizon they were just testing the waters.
What it takes to improve Git or: How I fixed zsh completion
The story of how I went from identifying a problem in zsh's completion, to eventually fix it after years of experimentation and work.
Keen On… IfOnly: How Silicon Valley Can Do Well By Doing Good
https://github.com/litecoin-project?tab=members
The only thing I learned from the commercial was that you could snap a magnetic type keyboard into it and that it came in different colors. Also, I needed to be wearing a suit or be a pissed-off looking schoolgirl to use this device.

The Dell commercials that are running now showing how it's better than an iPad are a model of clarity by comparison. I had absolutely no idea from the breakdancing commercials what the device was capable of.

I am not a big fan of TV but I have been a creative lead for a commercial series that won a Clio award, for what that's worth.
Well, its CEO refuses to even let rival products in his home, for starters. Talk about a well-insulated bubble, that's a great way to lose touch with customers.
as i said below, in my opinion, ballmer bet to much on the "we have office and you need it" part.

Also he was totally confident of success of windows 8, and with that success it was confident in the metro ui and then in the ease of switching to a rt tablet.

If you see these as a chain of events, the conclusion is really simple.
As some people have mentioned in this HN post, it is hard to define what programming means.

A program is the result of the automation of some process (system) that people have thought up (even things that couldn't exist before computers). Programming is the act of taking that process (system) and describing it in a computing device of some kind.

Programming currently requires some kind of mapping from the "real world" to the "computer world". The current mapping is done primarily with source code. So, it currently seems that people who are good at programming are good at mapping from the "real world" into the "computer world" via coding.

You seem to be making the point that some people are just good at programming because they can do things like "re-discover the bubble sort algorithm" or understand CAP theorem. These are very domain specific problems.

For people who are able to "re-discover inventory control management" they would do a great job of automating it (programming) if they had an easier way to map that process (system) to a computing device.

The ultimate goal (other than maybe AI) is a 1-to-1 mapping between a "real world" process (system) and a computing device that automates it.
5 Android Apps To Make Work Easier
That's not stripped down nearly enough for my tastes. I'm talking about the absolute bare minimum to make an app fully function.
The AnandTech link in the article says they found the string "BenchmarkBooster" in the apk alongside the class names of several well-known benchmarks.

http://anandtech.com/show/7187/looking-at-cpugpu-benchmark-o...
It's anyone's guess. How do we know how many patent suits were avoided because Google had a new arsenal to fight back with? How many new patents have Moto engineers filed since the purchase? How do we put a dollar value on the hardware expertise that Google picked up in the purchase?
Thanks for stepping up to argue MITs case. I understand you personally hold the view that MIT is not to blame for very much at all.

IANAL... I just notice that other people said that MIT could have put an immediate stop to the proceedings:

"Here are the facts: This report claims that MIT was “neutral” — but MIT’s lawyers gave prosecutors total access to witnesses and evidence, while refusing access to Aaron’s lawyers to the exact same witnesses and evidence. That’s not neutral. The fact is that all MIT had to do was say publicly, “We don’t want this prosecution to go forward” – and Steve Heymann and Carmen Ortiz would have had no case. We have an institution to contrast MIT with – JSTOR, who came out immediately and publicly against the prosecution. Aaron would be alive today if MIT had acted as JSTOR did. MIT had a moral imperative to do so."

(from http://tarensk.tumblr.com/post/56881327662/mit-report-is-a-w...)
Totally agree. I'm entirely a casual game player and I exclusively play card and casino games. I'd play strategy and MMO type games if I had time, but a quick poker game or even solitare takes a few minutes. MMO and strategy is a huge commitment.
Yikes. They better turn this around quickly, or they may no longer be the country's best technology company.
The story of Yugoslavia's DIY computer revolution
In addition, it runs all Windows apps.

There are a LOT of people who just want to get away from Windows. Macs still resemble Windows PCs so people expect crossover or compatibility somehow; tablets cross a psychological barrier helping people really leave the ecosystem.
Surface RT, Personal use.

The RT was the subject of several lunch time discussions over my recent internship. I remember one dev recounting the nightmare of buying a video rental through the xbox video app I think it was. The nightmare hinged on several issues one of which being the lack of silverlight support. His surface was out of space so downloading did not work yet streaming required the not present silverlight. He had to clear out some files in the end.

Another dev used his as a picture frame. Beyond those two cases I only ever heard of the RT going unused. This despite an internal program one could use to unlock the surface. Once unlocked any developer could then recompile one of the windows binaries and generate a testing package which could be installed. In theory this means the devs could have full control of the device. In practice no one appeared to care.

Another fun fact I learned: the Apple store gives discounts on the iPad if you show them your microsoft badge while the Microsoft store does not.
This is great, I've been searching all over for a white-label Square. Others, like PayAnywhere, have fallen short.
They also recovered $3 billion by selling the set top box business.
Thanks for the link. I still remember that thread and the original post. It was indeed awesome.
The fact that they found a code path that ensures particular programs get the full hardware speed does not mean that no other code path enables that performance level. I'm asking whether it is established that there is no other way that performance level is activated, as it does not seem clear to me from the article that that is the case.
I think the whole point of his series of talks is to inspire others to invent new things that not even he has thought of.
>products don't become bad just because they're advertised poorly.

Agreed, but bad advertising can definitely stop a great product from selling. Good advertising, on the other hand, can help a bad product sell. Just look at how much revenue the original Blair Witch Project generated. Microsoft created a mediocre product with the Surface RT. In a market crowded with absolutely excellent devices, there is simply no room left for mediocrity.

Furthermore, Microsoft didn't only fail to illustrate the few redeeming qualities of the Surface to consumers, it didn't even begin to try. A commercial is supposed to be a form of communication between the company and its potential customers. A commercial that doesn't communicate the product's value to it's potential customers is a waste of time and money.

>Either you watch a staggeringly small amount of television, or this is hyperbole.

I admit, it's a little of both.
Tech Terms Censored Online in China
1: No

2: No

3: No

4: No

5: No

6: Yes

7: No

Computer programmers like exact definitions. Server: The main controller of the program, or main sender of data.

The real world is much more fuzzy. They are concerned with business use, not server use exactly.
Making Websites for Geezers
I think they're just referring to the subcategory in the Play Store, but yeah, almost any mobile game could be labeled as Casual.
> Microsoft took seven straight year-over-year billion dollar losses until the Microsoft gaming division finally posted a profit in 2008.

This page suggest XBox still has accumulated losses of 3 billion:

http://www.neowin.net/news/report-microsofts-xbox-division-h...

But I agree with you. Because these are strategic decision with long term agendas, to know if they succeed or fail will take many years if not decades.
Welcome Back Kathy
Uh,

I don't think you have provided a persuasive argument (or any argument actually) for the contention that Microsoft's performance has a relation to the performance of a pharmaceutical company.

Drug development is hit-or-miss like software development. But that's about it.

Unlike drug development, software development often involves creating and maintaining a platform that will give you profits for years to come - or failing miserably and spectacularly. Microsoft's recent performance has been beyond abysmal and they've only only survived on the profits from their previous successes at building a platform - many people are still forced to use Windows. But everyone is looking around and the prospects look, uh, dim.

Sure, Microsoft doesn't live quarter to quarter. Which is why it's death is not yet finished but that's about it.
Nitpicking, but did you provide a scribd link on purpose?
Introducing MyDB from Cloudup
I loved Surface Pro but I felt that if they replaced i5 with an Atom [or atleast give it as an option], that would improve the battery life, reduce heat, make it slimmer and cheaper. Overall it would be everything that I want.
Most of the work is done, get off your ass and start porting.
Well... I believe they deserve some blame. This is well argued by others, I shall not bother rephrasing their statements.

Now to be clear: do you believe that MIT deserves no blame?
The Importance of a Dedicated Office when Working from Home
IFixit Tears Down Google Chromecast
That is a fair point and what MS is really afraid of but consumer device are not going to replace desktop computers, at least in my opinion.
Microsoft sucks, plain and simple. They really always have. I've been following the PC industry for 30 years. Microsoft won because of Office (Excel, Word, Powerpoint) at a relatively cheap combo price, cheap clone PC's, and the fact that they forced clone makers to pay for DOS no matter which OS they shipped. PC makers had to basically ship DOS/Windows, killing off any hope that BeOS, OS/2, etc would gain any foothold. Apple was never really any competition because they were overpriced.

Once the need for Office goes any, then any operating system will work for many people. Linux has finally won in the consumer space in the form of Android. Hopefully, we'll see a huge flood of "desktop/notebook" Android/Chromebook devices. Get "Office" in the cloud and the 90% desktop monopoly that Microsoft has had for two decades finally goes away. Don't get me wrong... This isn't Microsoft being the wrong company to have a monopoly, it's just silly that any company has a 90% market share. We don't buy 90% of our cars from General Motors.

Let's get a little more innovation in the consumer space. Google, Apple, Microsoft, and maybe even... Ubuntu dividing up the market will be better for everyone.
It's pretty obvious that, at the very least, these specific benchmarking apps are given a hugely unfair advantage, and probably only based on internal app ID strings. Apparently the frequencies were boosted for one of the benchmarking apps even if it was just sitting idly showing a menu or something.
How could Krebs protect himself, if someone ordered contract killers from the silkroad? I do hope that he get's some bodyguards, I never knew that infosec was a life-threatening job. I wish that it at least pays off for him, because it's surely a hard situation for his family. I couldn't take a breath, if I knew that my brother or sister was in danger.

I think these criminals should be very thankful to have Kreb alive and not in jail, because a) they win more market, by getting rid of other criminals b) they learn howto he doxxed the other criminals and can protect themselves better.

Maybe one of you has ideas on howto protect against that, then pleaes tell us
Manning Acquitted of Aiding the Enemy, Guilty of Espionage
Five Roles You Need on Your Big Data Team
Close: https://github.com/migurski/Blit
I can't say I feel a great sense of outrage. GPU makers have been doing way worse for longer (intentionally degrading image quality during benchmarks, for instance). The point of the benchmark is that it shows what the device can do at its peak potential, and what they're doing... is running the device at its peak potential. Yeah; I know: it doesn't normally run that fast, but at least it /could/ run that fast if you don't care about battery life and heat dissipation and other things the benchmark doesn't measure.
Trojan:TR/Patched.Gen Removal Tutorial
Iran may also be enriching uranium using lasers, U.S. think tank says
More active discussion on the same: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=6131136
Wasn't that Gates, not Ballmer?
How to Structure Your Board of Directors or Advisory Board
It's Quack3 all over again! http://techreport.com/review/5226/further-nvidia-optimizatio...
The main thing I want a tablet for is as a good sketchpad, ideally one that is fine with using a wood stylus so I can easily cut a stick to different nib shapes when I'm working.
This reminds me of a conversation I had with my Dad as a kid... Why would someone, who is already quite wealthy, risk everything and partake in something illegal to get even richer?

I'm wondering the same thing now... why would Samsung risk tarnishing their name when the GS4 is already considered the fastest mobile device in existence?

The only thing I can think of is that they could care less about their integrity or corporate image... they simply need to focus on catering to a tech-obsessed population with the fastest, highest resolution beast of a handset, everything else be damned.

What's wrong with a few "hardware optimized" apps to ensure that crown sits atop a Samsung device a bit longer?
installed and seeding at the same time?!?!!!!!
replax, I bow to thee. How the heck did you figure that out!
10 Windows commands you need to know
But could it? Does any other app have these frequencies available?
It's so sad to see this kind of stuff. It's not like the Galaxy S4 is a slow device. It reminds me of Nokia used a fake video [1] to sell the Lumia 920, which was supposed to have a pretty good camera. It just ends up being an unfortunate distraction that causes people to mistrust you.

Ars is right that this isn't new. I remember ATI being caught in the Quake/Quack thing [2] a dozen years ago.

[1] - http://www.theverge.com/2012/9/5/3294545/nokias-pureview-ads...

[2] - http://www.hardocp.com/article/2001/10/23/optimizing_or_chea...
The processor/GPUs do absolutely scale by load, however in this case they're scaling for specific apps, presumably because scaling that high for any other use (even where the throughput would be beneficial) would yield too hot of a device/kill battery.

It is incredibly dishonest, and there is simply no rationalizing it -- they are cheating, and everyone involved with this is kind of a scumbag.
It's not really about being in the charts, or even downloads, unless developers can make money from them. Unfortunately, there is more piracy on Android; ads can only bring in so much and break the experience of a game. Also, given the wide range in device performance, specs, and software, you really have to wonder if it's worth the time and money investment.
meh, i have used anorm. their site jabs at ORMs and jabs at Slick (typesafe SQL dsl in scala); but the wording of both jabs make it clear that they've missed the point of both tools. Slick is not about types - its about adding one-off functions to remove all the repition from complex SQL - and ORM isn't about hiding SQL under the hood, it's about expressing very complex queries at a higher level than is possible in SQL. Just because someone wrote it on the internet does not make it so.

If your app is simple CRUD on 10 tables, anorm is great. But even for CRUD on complex types (nested objects, objects with collections of objects, objects with values that aren't primitives e.g. dictionary types where possible values aren't known until runtime...) those queries will be crazy complex and repetitive in raw SQL and you will quickly see you need an orm (or move off sql to some other acid alternative like datomic). Anorm would be an ideal layer to write your own ORM in though.
They're talking about the Pro which presumably runs tons of audio software.
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I'm sure they did all of these things. The only place I can reasonably see it breaking down is in the reaction of upper management. All the advance planning in the world won't save you if the CEO insists that the product will be a hit even when your focus groups indicate that it will be a flop. I can only imagine that's what happened.
We're about to hit phase 3 of ARIN IPV4 rationing