skysight-inc/HackerNews huggingface dataset:
Could it be that it was Android that hurt Blackberry and Nokia more than the iPhone did? Low end Android phones definitely replaced a lot of Symbian phones in the marketplace. It would certainly explain the timing of the change.

The point isn't whether it was Android or iPhone (for the record, the Droid campaign started fall 2009). The notion of getting disrupted by higher cost phones--not iPhone for a Symbian but a smart phone for a flip phone--was so unthinkable and invisible that for three years the two companies under discussion here made do selling to emerging markets. It's essentially a tale of how the market and leadership at these companies do not see disruptions from above coming, and if they do see them coming being in a paradoxical state of needing to reverse course on a (thus far) successful strategy.

Not seeing how this follows from the data... There is a real chance of smartphones getting commodotized

Nobody is arguing that smart phones haven't been commoditized. The question is, how viable is a business that does not serve the low end? According to critics who are not keen on the nuances between these different products, a high-end play is not viable at all. But this is ignorant of the history of the Mac and iPod. It's also ignorant of the fate of PC-era commodity players.

By the way, I love the last sentence of Horace's piece here: "That’s not likely to be the case for those who found themselves in competition with the Mac in its pocketable re-incaration."--he's hinting at the possibility that these scary "commodity players," even if they see success, set themselves up poorly for the next round of disruption. Apple's whole-widget approach uniquely set it up to introduce disruptive form factors, and might do so again in the future.
OP too hung up on theory to see that TouchID works well in practice.
Angular-once: One time bindings for AngularJS
If you use AngularJS, have performance issues and need to display lots of readonly data, this project is for you!
Hah, you don't have a table device? My bad :P

Thanks for the encouragement, xauronx. That was also really good feedback on my "1000 companies" messaging. I guess my strategy is to try and give a little extra incentive for the early adopters. I do have plans to adjust it as I get closer to that goal, I'm not entirely sure to what yet.

Thank you so much!
If Firefox would find a way to let Chrome extensions work in Firefox, that would definitely make it a little easier to switch back and forth, definitely going to try this out though.
Great post! I'm founder of a company called Poikos, which enables body scanning just using the camera on a PC, tablet or smartphone. I created it to enable just such a mass customisation revolution as is discussed here. Maybe we should swap notes!
SEEKING FREELANCERS - Charlotte NC or DC Metro preferred, remote ok.

I'm building a small team of designers and developers to pilot a new business line for a mature ecommerce company (>$150MM annual revenue and growing fast). We'll be expected to ship quickly to prove the market, which means pragmatists are better than idealists and generalists better than specialists.

Preference for Rails, but building fresh so the right team could sway us. There will be a heavy client-side JS component. No short term plans for iOS or Android, but feel free to reach out because that won't be too far behind.

Agencies welcome, but odds are if your agency comes with a lot of the typical agency cruft, we won't be a good fit.

If interested in learning more, reach out to me at chris@databoxdigital.com
Why is Portland not marked ? There is at least 1 job opening posted for that location.
Half Life 3 - Confirmed?
Yes.

But then, you can run a single VM with any number of Docker containers inside. Depending on what you are doing, that could be a win.
Seriously. If we were to accept that sort of bullshit nonsense as evidence then we would also have "evidence" for widespread organized "Satanic ritual abuse" in the 1980's, devils which sit on the chests of sleeping people, ghosts and/or spirits of the dead, aliens riding DC-8's exploding hydrogen bombs in volcanoes...
I understand what you mean. And your bottom line that online retailing is growing and will cause a shift in the apparel industry, as it has in most others, is certainly valid. I'm just not sure the shift you're describing is likely.

I think this strategy is untenable for almost all of the designer brands in the market you're addressing, because the assumption of all the risk is not a good business model in any industry.

Let's look at VC for a moment. Having been involved in it, there is an obsession with risk analysis and reduction, and with good reason. A model that says "Let's take 100% of the risk and capture the margins!" probably can't support a whole market shift, and would probably be difficult to fund.
And funding of some kind would be necessary for most brands to be able to stock goods.

You're very knowledgeable about the back-end of the apparel business, it was cool to see a story like this on the front page of HN.
The gist I get from the link is that the act of "smoothing the wave" will not benefit the one who performs the act, but it benefits the drivers behind the lane. You can't fix the traffic jam in front of you, but you can do your part to prevent one from forming behind you.

And that's why people pass around the link.
> There is still potential for mass-fraud, but repeated seemingly uncoordinated reports improves credibility

Hmm. That would be an interesting piece of fraud (oops I mean public art) to architect. Make a Blender scene of Central Park, populate the scene with bystanders with phones (yes, this will take time to source realistic models and skeletal animations). Each phone gets to be a camera in the scene. Not all cameras start and stop at the same time, and a few of them will have to capture video before and after the event without the actual event included. Timestamp and tag the videos appropriately, including clock drift, then have fun with avconv/ffmpeg converting the formats to different video formats based on known phone sales and what default formats iOS/Android encodes to (ugh, I actually had to do this once back when zencoder/pandavideo).

Create twitter accounts in advance, make them look real by copying other twitter users, and the day of the event just start uploading the youtube videos all at the same time and get your fake tweets flowing.

Now, what could this pipeline be useful for? Suppose you know that the videos are fake, but also suppose you can be reasonably sure that others will accept this data as real news. What could you do with that? First idea is some killer marketing stunt..
Everyone's crapping on me for the choice of graph. I originally tried a 2d plot but the lines obscured each other.

More importantly, it wasn't intended to be a rigorous data representation because the results vary significantly between runs. I was just trying to communicate the results in an approximate fashion; the improvements are dramatic enough that approximate is good enough, IMO.

And in case anyone is thinking about suggesting errors bars: please don't.
About the only person I use even a pin lock around on my phone is my girlfriend, and that's just because she gets upset if I communicate with any girl. Fingerprint is fine for that purpose. Anything else I wouldn't bother locking it at all, I'd just disconnect the phone from my accounts if it is ever lost.
Like a good wine words tend to grow with time.

(I believe the parent quoted Twain.)
If they don't compensate security researchers enough, the incentive to find security holes goes away. People do this for a living.
> a few attempts to unlock it with a fake fingerprint, and then they'd have to enter my code. And if they fail to enter my code 10 times, the phone is wiped.

Are you saying that random people can pick up your phone when you go to the bathroom, touch the home button 3 times, and then enter "1111" 10 times, and wipe your phone? Is there some protection against this?
I have taken investment from people I trust using boilerplate convertible notes that I know and understand.

The "people I trust" part is important, as is the "that I know and understand" part. Common sense dictates that you probably don't want to take investment on terms given to you by a total stranger that you don't fully understand.

If you've never done this before and/or you don't understand the docs you're using, you should probably consult someone who does.
The customizations that allow disappearing the window decorations work only on Windows, as far as I could find.

Also, Firefox requires losing the bookmarks tab completely, whereas Chrome has a saner default of having it appear in new/empty tabs.
John, wow. This is one of my first posts on HN and I never expected this.

Yea, the $14 seems low, but it'll cover base operation costs. I did plan on making up for it in volume (going to read that article) but also have promotion opportunities (at cost) when companies publish new jobs.

In terms of marketing, I'm banking on a great experience going a long way. I have a few connections that can hopefully help me get a few recognizable logos on the homepage that could boost the credibility.

In addition to that, all your other questions are really challenging me for how I can get that momentum a lot sooner. And your suggestions are extremely helpful. I have a few loosely outlined goals for the next 30 days, and I'm going to include these into those plans.

Thank you so much :)
Getting a password requires consent, even if it's under duress. Getting your finger doesn't require you to agree with anything.
I used to work with a guy who would blame every bug that cursory inspection couldn't uncover on the compiler. This is of course laughable, but he'd once, ages before, actually found a compiler bug. I wonder if having this amazing get-out-of-debugging card made him a jobsworth, or was simply a magical proof of "God takes care of fools and drunks."
still are
But that means my bookmarks disappear completely, whereas in Chrome they are displayed in new tabs, which is far more useful behavior.
Incredibly useful for job hunters and well executed!
The map view needs some clever hack to increase readability in popular places like SF and London - maybe a brief description pop-up would do the trick?
Ok, if we're using this framework, here are some interesting thought experiments:

(1) What is Google Glass disrupting? What are the faulty assumptions about it? ("iPhone was a pocket Mac, not a better phone. Google Glasses is a ____, not a ?")

(2) What are the AI / Machine Learning disrupting? (Google, Apple, Facebook, Amazon, IBM, MS) ("AI is a ____, not a ?")

(3) What are the Kiva Systems robots disrupting? ("Kiva System robots is a ____, not warehouse automation? Not ?")

(4) What are 3D Printers disrupting? Certainly not mass-production factories.
What’s the Difference between an Accelerator and an Incubator?
good site, I use it for my java homework
I agree that even if millions claim that have been abducted this is not solid proof but I think that the main reason for the lack of solid proofs is the impact of such proofs on the human society.

Also this is subject is very taboo, most people reject the subject immediately as ridiculous and compare it to fairies and ghosts.
Maybe they are afraid, closed minded or really belive we are alone in this vast universe.
It's interesting because I never saw Balanced as an underdog. Maybe Stripe etc. have a lot of buzz right now (and rightly so they're an awesome product), but Balanced has backing from some awesome people and are a huge leader when it comes to a lot of things.
Apple Now Holds 10% of All Corporate Cash
Ask HN: Which startups are hiring with sponsorship/visa
If there are any startups out there who sponsor foreigners it would be great to share those opportunities on hackernews
> it is better than nothing

No, it's really not. Which is why it is so insulting.

It would have been much better to just say "thanks" and give nothing.
From the guidelines: http://ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html

- Please don't sign comments, especially with your url. They're already signed with your username. If other users want to learn more about you, they can click on it to see your profile.

- Resist complaining about being downmodded. It never does any good, and it makes boring reading.

- Please don't bait other users by inviting them to downmod you.

We would be happy to have your participation in a discussion, but this method is boring, tiresome and uninteresting. If you're willing and capable of elevating your discourse a bit I'm sure we'd appreciate what you have to say, but if not, you may find other forums more inviting.
I first started working on improving memory consumption in early 2011, and that evolved into the MemShrink project (https://wiki.mozilla.org/Performance/MemShrink) a couple of months after that. Firefox OS came later.

In fact, it's fortunate that MemShrink had been up and running for a while because it meant we had already fixed a lot of leaks and inefficiencies, and we had good tools for identifying memory problems in Firefox OS.
Maybe he was bitten by Linus.
It HAD lower price: it disrupted the portable computers which were more expensive at that time.

You already needed to pay for a phone, so the real price compared to a portable was just how much more expensive the iPhone was compared to a standard mobile phone.

Due to the system with 2 year phone contracts in USA, that extra price was low.
The Blockbuster Syndrome
I couldn't find any customization that removed window decorations in Linux. I found ones for Windows only.

Also, I got the (subjective) feeling that Firefox was becoming sluggish as I had 6-7 addons. I might be wrong, but that would mean Firefox is sluggish in general.
Twitch - Software Engineers - San Francisco, CA

2 years ago the idea of watching live video games online was a crazy notion, now it is big business. We've just raised a new round to continue our scale (http://tcrn.ch/1dSbFH4), which will accelerate even more as we're being shipped in both the xbox one and PS4 this Christmas.

We're looking for smart and passionate engineers to help us get there. We're in the process of incrementally rebuilding our architecture to support the near 50 million MAU we have on our site for hours each and every day. We're using Go (we've found some interesting bugs because of our scale) for large chunks of our new infrastructure. We're incredibly API driven - if you understand the concept of data gravity, you're the right kind of person. If you love creating high quality products, you're the right kind of person.

If you want to know more, email me at ossareh@twitch.tv (Director of Engineering, fwiw!)
With 37M Users And Revenues At $34M, Wix Files For $100M IPO On The NYSE
The comments [1] from a similar article [2] discussed the merits of this rather thoroughly.

[1] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=6472965

[2] http://grahamcluley.com/2013/09/serious-yahoo-bug/
My understanding is that nobody hired these guys to do anything and no bounty was offered for anything. So why should there be any expectation for a financial reward?
I don't know why people are hating the search links on the right. It's a neat idea. There were many times in school when I had to write a simple paper where something like Wikipedia sources were acceptable. If it was something I knew about before hand, I would write a good chunk from memory and then back check it against Wikipedia and other sources online. This might have been a great tool for that initial run.
Oh cool. There are two within 1,000 miles of me.
Have you tried the new version? You should try it before you dismiss it due to theoretical concerns. As I wrote in the blog post, the time before the page displayed dropped from 5 seconds to 1 seconds. And scrolling performance is unaffected AFAIK; if you have evidence otherwise Timothy and I would love to hear about it.
I wonder what differentiates a disruptive product from a better product? It seems like the qualities you listed are hallmarks of all good products, right?
Space impact of govt shutdown
Yes, startups typically retain counsel to assist with incorporation and fundraising. Mistakes made early on can come back to haunt you.

Check with your school. Perhaps they have an entrepreneurship program that can help?
Yeah, as I wrote that I actually began to think that it would be a pretty neat idea.

I think maybe you could do it by actually filming in Central Park with some sort of structure with white balls on it, in a certain known arrangement, that you could automate a lot of the video editing from various angles.. I'm not sure about that but I suspect it is feasible. If you get everyone to film different angles at the same basic time then the scene would be the same (just from different angles) and you'd have everyone else filming in the background that would lend credibility.
While I have not read the OP (yet... it's looking kind of long), the title immediately reminded me of Larry's talk/essay. Which I have read, in the past, and considered quite worthwhile. Thanks for digging up the link to that.
Brilliant illustration.

Terse writing has more punch, true. And for some media and most audiences, that's what you want. Most authors use a lot of weaselly filler (like "most" and "a lot") but not every interesting idea can be adequately conveyed by a pithy sentence. If people keep that in mind, we'll all benefit from better writing.
So 370$ is more than double than 231$? Thanks for the nice graph!
On the flip side, HT Bridge have got way more than 12.50 USD publicity out of this.
Perhaps they only allow 1 landmark per location? That would help solve the problem of having multiple entries per business in their database.
Crazy Adventure in Morden Manitoba
This is not uncommon. Incorporation alone will cost you around $1-2k, after all filing fees, services, etc. are included in the cost, and you need to do that before anything else.

I recommend using something like clerky.com for incorporation and post-incorporation setup. They might also be able to help you with the later parts of the process.

As far as the cost goes...you gotta spend money to make money. Don't do any of this until you're absolutely sure that you have committed investors, and you'll minimize your risk.
Try it! It's not hard. And if you do, please reset your profile first: https://support.mozilla.org/en-US/kb/reset-firefox-easily-fi.... Lots of old Firefox profiles have problems that can hurt performance, and resetting can make a big difference.
WANdisco was founded in Silicon Valley, California in 2005. Some of the World's biggest companies rely on our software to keep their software engineers working round the clock, around the world.
The Job:
Java Engineer, working in our worldwide Engineering team.
You'll be part of our Big Data team, working on Apache Hadoop and related WANdisco products.
What you'll be doing:
- Providing input on product design and architecture
- Solving difficult programming problems
- Working with a global team of experts
What we're looking for:
- 5+ years of experience in Java development
- Excellent problem solving and communication skills
- Excellent development skills in Java and JEE, with commercial experience of OO Design, Multi-threading, Networking, NIO, and Collections
- Version Control knowledge (Git)
- Experience with Unix/Linux environment
- Team players who can also work on their own initiative
Bonus Points:
- Software Engineering/Computer Science Degree (or equivalent experience)
- Previous Hadoop or Big Top development experience
- Knowledge of Groovy/Grails
- Experience of testing frameworks such as JUnit or Mockito
- Experience of Web Containers such as Tomcat or Jetty
- Spring Framework experience
- Working knowledge of Scala
- Familiarity with JAVA Web Technologies (JSP/JSF/WEB Services)

All positions are in San Ramon, CA USA and Belfast, UK.

Contact cos<at>wandisco<dot>com
Did they ever take money beyond the YC seed check before they sold to Conde Nast?

Reddit was a massive community before the acquisition and 100k is hardly oodles of venture money, right?
San Francisco, CA - FULLTIME + INTERN (NO REMOTE) - Early-stage (0.5-2+% equity)

Vurb (http://vurb.com) - Max Levchin funded startup - http://techcrunch.com/2013/02/20/contextual-content-engine-v...

We're creating a better way for people to search, browse, and share on the Internet, by connecting the services we use in a contextual way that's more usable, efficient, and social (e.g., no more having lots of windows/tabs open). We do this through unique UX/UI combined with search, machine learning, big data, and other fun technologies.

We're looking for people who are interested in:

* JavaScript (node.js, backbone.js) - generalist / full-stack development

* Search / Data Science - search / classification / ranking, machine learning, recommendations, NLP, data crawling/processing

* Mobile (iOS, Objective-C) - development of native apps on iPhone/iPad and Android

We're stealth but funded by Max, Drew Houston (Dropbox), Naval Ravikant (AngelList), Michael Arrington (CrunchFund), and many others. If you're looking to join a small team that solves complex problems and is making something people will use daily, then come find out what we're up to.

jobs@vurb.com | http://vurb.com/jobs | angel.co/vurb
I started reading Lefsetz when I was still working in the pro audio industry. While not backed up with data, I still find his opinions interesting to consider. In this post since he seems to have changed his opinion lately. I found the quote interesting:

"But my main point is while you were at home plotting your assault on the Internet, growing virally from nothing to something, the entire game changed. The public became wary of wasting time, not only foraging for new entertainment, but finding out in most cases what they discovered wasn’t worth the effort. So people have retreated, they’ve come back from the wilderness and have set their eyes on what everybody else is paying attention to."
Looks really neat! Any plans for more data formats other than csv? Also, service is down... must be all that hn traffic :)
Direct link to the (amazing) video
"http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lX6JcybgDFo"
Correct, however:

1) Chrome's behavior where you get bookmarks bar in new tabs is far more useful.

2) Even without the bookmarks' bar, I have 4 bars (window decorations, menu bar, tab bar, URL bar), whereas Chrome has 2 (tab bar + window decorations, URL bar).

Screen-space is still wasted compared to Chrome, and you don't get bookmarks in new tabs.
WANdisco was founded in Silicon Valley, California in 2005. Some of the World's biggest companies rely on our software to keep their software engineers working round the clock, around the world.

The Job:
Java Engineer, working in our worldwide Engineering team.
You'll be part of our Big Data team, working on Apache Hadoop and related WANdisco products.

What you'll be doing:

- Providing input on product design and architecture

- Solving difficult programming problems

- Working with a global team of experts

What we're looking for:

- 5+ years of experience in Java development

- Excellent problem solving and communication skills

- Excellent development skills in Java and JEE, with commercial experience of OO Design, Multi-threading, Networking, NIO, and Collections

- Version Control knowledge (Git)

- Experience with Unix/Linux environment

- Team players who can also work on their own initiative

Bonus Points:

- Software Engineering/Computer Science Degree (or equivalent experience)

- Previous Hadoop or Big Top development experience

- Knowledge of Groovy/Grails

- Experience of testing frameworks such as JUnit or Mockito

- Experience of Web Containers such as Tomcat or Jetty

- Spring Framework experience

- Working knowledge of Scala

- Familiarity with JAVA Web Technologies (JSP/JSF/WEB Services)

All positions are in San Ramon, CA USA and Belfast, UK.

Contact cos<at>wandisco<dot>com
Protection against what ? That is the desired behaviour of most people. And if it isn't then you can simple disable the behaviour.

It's not like you will lose data since it is backed up to iCloud.