skysight-inc/HackerNews huggingface dataset:
I love Linux, but I disagree with you. The amount of money Google makes from the Play store is negligible compared to their overall revenues. I highly doubt they don't include a file manager so they can make a few more bucks. It probably has more to do with the fact that most people don't need a file manager (mobile computing has a totally different paradigm than desktop computing).

Also, the "1000s of top quality" apps don't exist. Where are they? Most aren't designed for a touch interface so they'd have to be redesigned. Wait, they'd have to be redesigned to give an experience that we already have? How is that not a waste of time? Having seen Ubuntu OS.. It's garbage. "real linux" for the sake of being able to say it isn't worth it if the platform is slower, takes more battery life, and has less apps. Yes, you can improve on those three things, but you'd be putting in so much effort to replicate an OS that is already open source.

A fork of Android is a much better idea than starting from scratch. Look where Maemo, Meego, and Tizen went. Look at where Ubuntu OS will go.
It's a very old, very immature joke that adds absolutely nothing to the conversation.

You've been on HN long enough that I'm surprised you're surprised.
My initial thought was "didn't that already happen?" It's an easy mistake to make.
Yes, but it's everyday data. rimshot
Anyone know price per share? I was not able to find it in the press release.
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That sounds awful. You should cut that shit out of your life like it's a bad drug. You don't need it.
It's especially interesting in light of shareholder activism by Value Act. Value Act had been against the devices strategy. Two days ago they struck a deal to get a seat on MSFT's board[0]. Was this part of the deal? Or is this an upraised finger in the rearview mirror?

The kremlinology of all this is very complex.

[0] http://www.usatoday.com/story/money/business/2013/08/31/micr...
The Mac Pro is a beast - I am still running a first gen MacPro1,1 - it's got an IDE drive installed in the second optical bay, four 3.5 SATA drives in the main bays and 2 2.5 SATA drives connected to the extra SATA connectors hidden under the front fan. At various times it has a hardware RAID card, extra FW+USB card, extra video card, video capture card, etc. I'm just about to grab a pair of 4 core xeons, extra ram, a Radeon hd5770 and some SSD drives - flash it to a MacPro2,1 and I can run Mavericks on it, with a Geekbench of about 10k. US$400 for the upgrades not including the SSDs.

I think Apple has really dropped the ball with the new Mac Pro - it is like the Cube, it looks cool but the Mac Pro is not a machine that requires form over function - people buy them to upgrade them, swap things in and out, stick them in racks, etc. Thunderbolt is not a replacement for pro use expandability - it just means a lot more cost + a lot more (very expensive) cables + a performance hit.

A good excuse for Apple to discontinue the Pro line eventually though - "hey we made this great new machine, but nobody bought it, so sorry"
Pretty well: http://www.windowsphone.com/en-us/store/app/6tag/7d795cdf-fb...
I agree, that's why the "It’s the handheld market where Nintendo is in the most trouble, they say." quote was the most perplexing to me.

I was and am under the impression that despite a shaky start, the 3DS is in a strong position financially.
I dunno why, but the inconsistency is grating to me.
Better than nokia maps and nokia transit on your iphone/android.
> All I want is the ability to make arbitrary changes to the software running on my phone. Why is that so hard?

What mainstream OS makes this easier than Android?
[copied from above] we have removed the restriction of popular email providers only. thank you for your feedback. its helping us get better!
From the article, it sounds like they're contributing to technological progress in some pretty remarkable ways. Their pneumatic diesel-powered factories sound incredible. They're not necessarily any better than your standard factories, but from an engineering perspective these sound like fascinating research laboratories.

Of course, these research laboratories are churning out a lot of high-quality modern furniture.
Fun! I got a score of 650. It got hard once there were five languages to choose from, and I had studied none of them.
Good point, I should have said "infinitely" instead of "orders of magnitude".
HTC and Sumsung are almost irrelevant in the Windows Phone ecosystem anyway. They obviously made little effort and aren't likely to make more, with or without the acquisition.
Uhm. Ok?

Looked at page. No idea what I'm looking at.

Checked out Tent.io. Sorta understand.

Back to cupcake. Nope, thought I understood.

Sign up for free account. Still no idea. Oh well. Later.
I am completely against written tests or questions that ask abstract questions and ask you to write algorithms. Unless you're going for a position that requires a PhD in computer science and your job will be writing algorithms and solving overly complex problems, the pen and whiteboard approach just doesn't work in 2013.

Hiring a developer shouldn't be as complicated as some companies make it out to be. Maybe for the likes of Google it has to be a lot more complex than others because they have an image and large workforce that depends on people being excellent self-managers and workers that require minimal management.

For smaller companies you are wasting your time and my time asking me questions that test my ability to remember things more-so than they do to search and find answers. Lets face it, most developers these days are hackers. I've never met a developer who knows the answer to everything, I've seen the best of the best using Stackoverflow to find an answer to their question.

The difference between a good developer and a great developer is knowing a little and for the stuff you don't know, knowing exactly what to Google when you encounter a problem you can't solve off of the top of your head. As Albert Einstein famously said, "Never Memorize What You Can Look Up in a Book" — that doesn't mean don't learn anything, but get the basics down and eventually you'll know what to Google when you don't know something.

The real test of any developer is if they're a good fit for your team, have good work ethic and can get the job done. You can find the smartest developer in the world but they might not be a good fit for your team. Culture matters as does a good work environment with compatible people.

The best way to test a developer anywhere in the world is to give them access to a computer, an IDE and their environment of choice. Then ask them to build you something. Don't ask them to write binary search code if they're being interviewed for a front-end position, ask them to build something.

Welcome to your interview; build us a blog, build us a todo app, write a simple Wordpress plugin, write a jQuery plugin or what my current employer did: they brought me in for a trial for a couple of days (paid) and asked me to get my hands dirty on a real project they were currently working on. Just threw me in the deep end and after two days they had a good idea how I worked and if I was a fit.
Facebook advertising.

We were struggling to get traction in the market (http://portalcharts.com). We did a $500 advertising spend on Facebook tailored towards our target geography and demographic. The results were excellent: CPA < $1 per sign-up.
Ah, very true. Although the purpose of posting it was not for the sake of the joke itself. Anyways, I'll be more mindful of contributing to your ego (intelligence?) with my responses next time. ;)
Nokia was well on its way down before Elop. It's not fair to pin that on him. But, it did seem pretty clear (even then) that his turnaround strategy involved a Microsoft purchase.
Are you sure? The description you just gave is unreasonably broad. What does "security, property or the economy" even mean, and what justifies their inclusion?
One approach is to let one process do the ssl termination, and only that -- that raises the bar some. That process might be nginx -- running under a different uid -- or one of the many ssl-proxies.
Idk, sounds like the year of Linux on the desktop is closer than it has ever been. :)

But you should really look at Chromebooks/ChromeOS for one glimpse of what a consumer-friendly, non-MS system would really look like. Right now it is the #1 selling laptop on Amazon, and reviews are pretty positive.

If I was a shareholder in MSFT, I would seriously be worried for the future of the whole Windows platform, mobile and desktop.
Or Neocities!
To be fair, Google also owns a phone manufacturer (Motorola), also bought on the cheap after a few years of flagging sales. They've managed to keep relationships with other phone manufacturers going despite this, so far, but it is a similar problem.

It's conceivable that some of the asian manufacturers might want a foot in each camp (so long as each looked viable at all) just for leverage to use against the other.
Nokia: Elop's Burning Platform Memo [2011]
In his defence, what were the chances of that.
It seems like this will be very interesting fight between Apple, Microsoft, Google, and Samsung in next few years. I assume the first three will do relatively well - the only looser here will be Samsung.
It seems to me based on my unscientific anecdotal evidence (watching how people interact with a boss across cultural barriers), that one of the real issues is that when people are speaking, the communication doesn't only come from the words and the general context, but also the ability of two people to connect and communicate by articulating thoughts in the way the other can understand.

We like to pretend that languages are these very simple things, but they aren't. We bring our expectations to interactions and these are cultural expectations. Keep in mind I am married to someone from another culture, so while I have a lot of experience but I can't call it scientific.

For example, power relationships affect communication differently among Chinese than Americans. Americans will communicate differently when questioning a boss's decisions and this leads to Chinese assuming their authority is challenged when this isn't intended for example. Similarly on the other side, Americans may miss the subtly of the communications that the Chinese expect and this can cause problems too.

So with this in mind, I think that the question is how well are people able to communicate effectively, and accents are, I think, at best a proxy for a lot of other thins going on.

If I were to make one recommendation, it is "recognize that everyone is ethnocentric and if you are working with people from other cultures, expect misunderstandings, and work with them."
> [...] use a propane powered fork lift with metal wheels (no rubber so you can't drive it on the road) to cart around stacks of heavy metal as they manufacture very precise milled metal parts for pneumatic motors and for kerosene cooking stoves, an Amish favorite.

That is impressive but that is just insanity. I visited an Amish parish in central Ohio. It wasn't just visiting the gift shop. It was a long story but we ended up sharing a meal and spending the day with them. They are great and warm people. Very good food. Women are reserved and never really talked to us much. The place was fascinating in how clean and pristine it was. Now going back to technology -- yeah they are crazy. I don't have any other way to put it.

See I don't mind artificial handicaps. Like say, ok, let's see if I can program a web server in assembler for fun, or use an editor without syntax highlighting with the delete button disables, or spend the weekend without making any left turns. Those can be fun learning experience or just fun things, goofing around.

But, structuring the a whole life around arbitrary restrictions (can use pneumatic tools but not electrical, can use a car but have to paint it black, can't own a car but oh, you can hire a taxi, can own a tractor but has to have metal wheels, can't use electricity for light but can use it for power tools in the shop) I see it more about abuse and control of minds than anything.

This is especially interesting to see if you look at other countries. Countries where there is pervasive poverty . They would love to get their hands on new tractors, electricity, cell phones, better education and I wonder what would they think about these groups of people in a developed country going out of their way to avoid all those things.
US Army ignores shared PC login flaw, asks soldiers to keep quiet
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Microsoft to acquire Nokia's handset business for $7.2 billion
Microsoft buys Nokia. Will it save them?
I like your little "first party" qualification to make sure your snark was accurate.

Anyway, there are plenty of great Instagram apps on Windows Phone 8:

http://www.wpcentral.com/tags/instagram
Admitting things that make it obvious that you care too much what your friends think is courageous and introspective. He opened himself up to the inevitable ridicule of people like you (courage) and openly described things about himself that are widely viewed negatively by society (introspection).
I'm not sure what world your on. Elop would not have been in the running as CEO of Microsoft. I don't believe he would have had enough experience at that time. Was there anybody other than Ballmer and ray Ozzie epwho would have been considered.

He's actually brought Nokia back from the brink and kept a sinking ship somewhat afloat, in my opinion. At the same time, I don't think he is enough of a visionary to lead Microsoft.
Nokia Siemens Networks (NSN) is also not small
Great article :)

Maybe not secrets, but lessons learned from the current state of the industry. Each one of the points I make is either from a mistake made in an interview I've personally given or received.
I'm not an Android dev, but I would assume that Play Store has always had special permissions in order to be able to install applications, so Google need only deploy an updated version of Play Store for both old/new devices, and that updated version of Play Store have the necessary code to use its privileges to install Play Services and grant Play Services special privileges.
Putting aside the payment issue, as that's a confusing one even for 'professionals' in this modern music world - I find it difficult to believe people will get much joy from something they have no talent at. More to the point, there is the opportunity cost; time is better spent on something they have more ability for, and hence will derive more enjoyment from.

Taken to an extreme, lack of talent that is disclosed in public causes people a lot of stress. Take a look at any kind of 'world's next best singer' program for many examples of this.
Another way to put it is that vanilla HTML will support the full market so you have to be confident that moving away from it will cover that margin in revenue or savings just to break even. On a large commerce site for example, even a small percentage of revenue could be a staggering amount.
That actually could be a benefit to Microsoft having valueact on the board, though it isn't easy, I suspect opposing views are what make a board stronger, rather than weaker.
What is a tech blog?
Exactly. This acquisition gels well with the "devices and services" narrative. It helps that Microsoft has good hardware division, and combined with Nokia I hope they find traction in Mobile market. This is a good acquisition for MS, as Nokia was already on WP. I wonder what happens to the rumored Nokia tablet now.
Maybe "belief" is the wrong criterion. Maybe "evidence" would be a better way to decide the issue. Small bits of evidence, that might eventually lead to concrete science, are accumulating, for example in our exploration of Mars we see various signs that Mars could have supported life long ago -- signs of past liquid water, certain minerals that are favorable to life. Things like that.

Feel free to believe or not believe, but I prefer reality. I prefer direct evidence.
> What else is part of Nokia other than their 'Nokia Devices & Services'?

As of recently, all their enterprise/industrial gear: DSLAMs, muxes, 3G/LTE gear, carrier hardware, etc. when they bought Siemens share of Nokia Siemens Networks (NSN), noting that Nokia was originally flying solo with this stuff before the JV with Siemens.
I started using Slackware Linux in 1997. If I had a nickel for everytime someone declared the Linux desktop is imminent since then I'd have more money than Bill Gates.
No comment on most of that, but to clarify: he worked for Mozilla Corporation (for-profit), not the Mozilla Foundation (non-profit).
With every passing day Windows is becoming more and more irrelevant - iPads, Chromebooks, non-Windows SmartPhones/Tablets etc. are really the future of consumer computing. So it isn't as far fetched as it was few years ago that OEMs will successfully back Ubuntu/Fedora/Android/ChromeOS and give consumers a laptop that can do everything Windows does for them today.

The only holdouts would be power users that rely on Windows software and the Enterprise users - they aren't the majority user base of Windows though.
Free is powerful
"Our competitors aren’t taking our market share with devices; they are taking our market share with an entire ecosystem. This means we’re going to have to decide how we either build, catalyse or join an ecosystem."
They've been trying to ape Apple in consumer electronics for the last ten years. For some reason, they figure since Apple was making a butt-load manufacturing and selling their own Phones and Tablets, they should do that too. Meanwhile, Google follows the Microsoft OEM strategy and Android takes 80% of the market.
I called this on Friday after looking at the stock market. Too bad I didn't bet too much money on it, but I still made a bunch :)

http://stocktwits.com/bluercloud/message/15522482

http://stocktwits.com/bluercloud/message/15522546

By the way, this looks like an acquihire for Elop being the next MSFT CEO.
There's a link to MEGA's website, right at the top of the submitted story's webpage. You might enjoy reading before commenting.
There is nothing great in notorious patent aggressor (MS) getting tons of mobile related patents...
Then why would you comment about your ios app? :) http://i.imgur.com/HsVRWTX.png

Edit: he had a comment there saying he has tickled me and he is using Blackberry q10 indeed.
It also mean that any of your Chrome / Firefox extension can access it when you open mega.co.nz
Right. And the initial railways that crossed the US were affordable?
An Outline of Out of the Tar Pit
We may see the strength in Microsoft server future come from azure, and not from software. Though it is more difficult to get people to try azure over other platforms, I have heard amazing things about it. Personally, I've just always stayed away from Microsoft dev environments, even though I prefer my pc and windows phone to my apple/android variants.
I found this statement interesting - "Microsoft will draw upon its overseas cash resources to fund the transaction." I've seen it mentioned quite a few times that tech companies end up with massive overseas cash reserves they can't repatriate for tax reasons. Anyone with better knowledge of finance/tax want to chime in with whether this makes the deal even more attractive for MS?
Nokia Solutions and Networks still makes plenty for money so they aren't dead quite yet. I think this makes sense for Microsoft seeing as how the redesign of Windows phone hasn't made back the money they put into it. It's becoming unprofitable for windows phones to be made so they are ensuring they have hardware.
The "first party" bit is the scathing, indicative part..
Nokia, like RIM, Microsoft, and Palm, was caught with their pants down, TWICE. First with Apple's iPhone, then with Google's Android. Basically two tech companies with no presence in mobility, took the market away from the incumbents. In hindsight, when Elop took the CEO job, it was too late to fight the iOS and Android behemoths.

What could have Elop done? Gone down the Blackberry route and try to have a competing platform? Or maybe try to fight Samsung by releasing an Android phone - with no guarantees that Nokia would fare better than others who tried (looking at you HTC, Sony, LG, etc.)
Microsoft to buy Nokia phones unit
There are various other Android app store apart from the official play Store
(Amazon, F-droid, etc). Any app can request permission to install other apps silently, or may be even a newer version of itself. Play Store uses no private API which is not available to other Android developer. Ask your users to download the apk from your website, if Google Play store won't carry your app, and then built-in a mechanism to auto-update at will.
It is $7.17 http://allthingsd.com/20130902/microsoft-to-buy-nokias-devic...

But still less than $8.5 paid for Skype. (Which I think is total waste of money)
As a beginner to programming I had enough self-awareness to realise that my achievements were of little to no interest to those with more ability and experience, and certainly would not have been worth publishing in a magazine (as the equivalent would have been at the time). This is 'Hacker news' - but these days the word 'Hacker' has been diluted in meaning to something that doesn't really mean 'hacking' any more.

The car metaphor is not a valid comparison - we are not talking about the operation of a tool, but gaining of skills in an area that requires both natural and learned abilities.
For those looking for a more recent perspective, from today's NPR broadcast:

http://www.npr.org/blogs/alltechconsidered/2013/09/02/217287...
> He's actually brought Nokia back from the brink and kept a sinking ship somewhat afloat, in my opinion. At the same time, I don't think he is enough of a visionary to lead Microsoft.

I share the same opinion. I think Elop cops a lot of flak from mobile enthusiasts, but the Nokia he took over had a lot of downward inertia that he needed to overcome and their new devices are actually pretty nice. They might never catch up (although I hope they do) on the ecosystem front. I believe that Nokia + Android and/or Nokia + Maemo were untenable, especially given the internal software politics Nokia was known to suffer.
Well, at least Qt got warp-core ejected before all of this. God only knows what would have happened in this transaction.
> Don't ask them to write binary search code if they're being interviewed for a front-end position, ask them to build something.
+1!

Thanks for the thoughtful response; I really love the way you worded this.

I agree with what you're saying; the best, most fun, challenging and fair interviews I've had have been at small companies coding side by side with somone. I wonder if it's possible to scale the "build-it" interview up to a google sized org.

Another idea I've been mulling around is hiring people for an N month contract position where you get to work with them. If at the end, both parties agree its a good fit, then proceed. I can see a lot of pit falls to this approach, but it might work really well for people with strong referrals.