skysight-inc/HackerNews huggingface dataset:
Just as a general entrepreneur question. If I were to use this source code, create a website that hosts fatfreecrm for other people and charge them money, would that be considered a violation of GNU?
Agreed. A douchebag is the type of person most likely to break an agreement with a friend, so making the agreement "don't be a douchebag" is pointless.
The output of this guy is simply staggering. I would love to know more about him, and I'm sure he'd hate that. Like Bill Watterson.
Walkman Turns 30, but Sony Struggles
Every question has an rss feed, for example: http://stackoverflow.com/feeds/question/415260
Oh, that's interesting. I probably shouldn't have commented without reading the whole thing, especially since what I said was a bit off-topic. (It's often easier to comment on tangential things, which makes a lot of discussions go awry.) I recommend upvoting mgreenbe, who actually has something on-topic to say!

Come to think of it, I vaguely remember reading this, or excerpts from it, years ago.
Using "benefit to oneself" as the only metric for the value of your actions is one of the defining features of sociopathy. Yes, this works, but it's partly what makes so many forums on the 'net such unpleasant places to be.

It works, yes, but is it moral, ethical, constructive, useful, or add value? Does thinking like this make you a better person?
Cassandra and the new wave of distributed databases
yeah, _why is a mistic (and pretty smart) individual. he's also a cool guy. I enjoyed watching the speech he gave at the ART && CODE Symposium: http://www.vimeo.com/5047563 .

oh, and thanks to raju for submitting the link; I last checked hackety.org about two weeks ago and it was down then. it's nice to see that hackety.org is up and running again.
And the human eye imposes a fundamental limit on how much resolution is needed to faithfully reproduce a scene.

Which limits are closer: the eye's capabilities or the noise floor?
Ask HN: Rate My App (Bingo Card Creator, Now With Extra AJAX)
Hideho everybody. I know it is a weeeee bit off the beaten path of the type of applications we usually see here, but I thought I'd see if you guys had any comments on my summer project.

http://staging.bingocardcreator.com

Click on either the "Use Online" or "sign up free" to try the web version.
I suspect that many externalities, both positive and negative, are ignored (sometimes selectively) when schools make statements about the profitability of a sports program. A few months ago, I was surprised to learn that the daughter of my wife's friend was not accepted to Ohio State. She was an in-state resident with a 23 on her ACT. Hardly a stellar score, but above the National average. Back in my day (15 years ago), she would have been rubber-stamped. Apparently, OSU was able to parlay its success on the football field into lots of undergrad applications. So, they were able to become more selective. This may be the start of a positive feedback loop that results in a reputation more like U of M than some random state college.

[No, I don't think reputation is everything. But, if that's what they wanted to improve, sports may have been a very efficient mechanism for all the wrong reasons.]
Clickable: http://staging.bingocardcreator.com

What is it: Bingo Card Creator is desktop software (written in Java swing) I wrote three years ago that, well, makes bingo cards. It is mostly used by very non-technical teachers and parents -- something on the order of 1,800 paying customers and about 100k free trials floating around out there.

What is new: While this app was a very good choice for desktopification 3 years ago, these days I thought I have both the skills and the OSS libraries to actually make a fair go of webifying it. So I thought I'd try making a version in Rails.

Feature-wise the desktop version is still superior but I think the ease of use of the web app is fairly compelling. (Your comments are appreciated.) As of the next release of the desktop version it will feature integration with the web app (allowing people to, e.g., save their cards on my server so they can move them between computers, etc). That feature is not demoable today.

Things that I rather like about the web version:

1) Live preview on card editing. (Prototype + Prawn + ImageMagick if you were wondering.)

2) Guest logins, with an "upsell" while you're waiting for cards to print. (Not a feature I would have included normally, but HN has convinced me of the utility.)

3) Copious backend analytics.

4) Time from front page to bingo cards coming out of printer: less than 30 seconds.

N.B. This is not the production system, since I want to do some tighter integration with the rest of my site and a bit of load testing prior to launch. Anything you do will eventually be wiped.
That's an interesting perspective. There's some personal history of why I called it Fat Free CRM, but your point is well taken.
I'm totally confused - the story as written by TechCrunch, from what I recall, was as follows:
"Please stop using "tweet" and other UI elements in your website"

Two things came out of this story for me:

o Twitter is defending the trademark 'tweet'

o Twitter is defending their UI elements.

I found both to be interesting. I'm much less interested in some website called "tweetknot", that indeed does look like a total rip off of twitter.

I have no issues with TechCrunch protecting their source, and found the story to be interesting.
And I enjoyed reading it. I think it serves as a great reminder to all those who think it's quick to clone stuff.

It might not be hard work sometimes for some sites. But it surely isn't trivial and surely isn't cheap (especially time-wise).

Guys, that's also why people will pay for your "free" web apps. When they improve their lives and are "easy" for you to write, the time and money to recreate even the easiest site is a barrier that they have.
Six months from now, TechCrunch will quietly start running XXL boxes instead of the dual-skyscrapers it's running now, and we can all move on.
It's quite reasonable to assume that with further engineering and sufficient computer power, many of those distortions will be ironed out. The cost of digital post-processing is in constant decline, whereas the cost of shooting with a steadicam/ dolly/ crane on set is more or less constant. All of these require expensive, bulky, and highly visible equipment for one thing; for another, any time you take the camera off a tripod the cost goes up because moving the camera adds 3 new vector variables to the shot calculus, requiring more takes for a good result.

I see this being an instant hit with low-budget shooters who are prepared to lavish time on getting it right and are more concerned with energy than perfect fidelity. Later there will probably be rough-quality realtime preview on set followed by near-perfect post rendering.
My point precisely. I was referring to the package management system being better, not necessarily the packages available.
EFF: Help Protesters in Iran: Run a Tor Bridge or a Tor Relay
Yeah, make ads more annoying so that even Joe Average installs Adblock. Great plan.
That's true. I believe you can use Fat Free CRM with Postgres without UUIDs, just like SQLite backend that is supported.

I'll take a closer look at supporting Postgress sometime soon. Among other things I'd really like people to be able to deploy to Heroku easily.
"The Mersenne Twister (MT19937)
© 1997-2002, Makoto Matsumoto and Takuji Nishimura"

A new language including a high performance, reasonably high quality (suitable for most Monte Carlo simulations) random number generator rather than the crap that you get by default in most languages? Well I never.
Hulu did a really good job with it as well. I think if Hulu's execution was poor, Joost would have had a much better chance at survival.
This reminds me of another thing I've never got round to writing - a simple program that just presents your video as a picture within a larger area, which moves around to compensate for your hand wobble. All the solutions I've seen either crop or warp, trying to hide the wobble, but losing or distorting part of the image. (Admittedly I haven't checked this one out yet, because I'm at work. Maybe there really is no distortion).
I suspect that the simple solution would be just as good, if you didn't mind letting people know that your hand wobbled, which most people don't.
Not at all. Now you would have to provide a link on your website that would allow someone to download the code with your changes and additions since this project uses the AGPL (also known as Affero GPL http://www.affero.org/oagpl.html )
The writer only mention's Adobe's involvement in passing. Personally, I think it's a lot better than Final Cut's motion smoothing filter (although the latter has the advantage of being available now). Bad news for Apple. It's a subjective impression, but I feel that FCP is steadily losing ground to adobe in this market.
I might be an edge case here, but I regularly print web pages to PDF so that I can ship them around to various devices when I'm travelling and either don't have access to the internet, or I'm not able to connect (on an airplane, for example).

Also, a PDF reader is specialized in the same way a browser is specialized; they're both essentially ubiquitous now.
Sounds cool. Hack something up and push it to github/Google Code/whatever so we can see the commits. :)

I would be extremely proud of myself to get high quality search in place in one weekend.
"Twit" is a trademark owned by Leo Laporte, and if you use it in your name he will come knocking.
Counterpoint: They are available in a free version precisely because of the competitive pressures from the open source stack...
Ruby 1.9 has real iterators now.
Twitter does not need to throw the book at them. It will never take off
That part under "July" is meant to be mildly sarcastic; hopefully it doesn't come off as disappointment that it didn't take two months. It has been a very fun and educational ride.
I like the Zen of Python myself, but the first thought that crossed my mind was that the Python example could use xrange and save the generation of a temporary list. So there are at least two ways of doing it in Python, both of which look very similar and differ only in the underlying implementation.

This makes me curious how much more frequently range is used than xrange and in what situations it's preferable.
Little Girls Get Bigger Every Day
While I don't entirely disagree with that, it should be pointed out that Hulu has also executed. It's not like it is "Hulu with content and no execution" vs "Joost with execution and no content", and then a fight to see who wins. It sounds more like "Hulu had content and execution" and "Joost had neither", and that matchup doesn't really provide any object lesson to anybody beyond the rather obvious "You really ought to bring something substantial to the table".
Mobile (App) Development: Android's Missed Opportunity? - Continuations
Now, if only someone could ressurect BYTE as it was in the late 80's and early 90's...

Yes. I never said I was not nostalgic.
Already mentioned here: http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=682607
I believe the parent was referring to the rubygems system, not the quality of the gems themselves.
Stop talking, start writing! Seriously, if you can do it in two or three days, what are you waiting for?

These guys are experienced businessmen and have analysed and guessed that they can charge $$$ (per month!) for StackExchange and that it will be a success.

If you can put out a clone and charge $$ for it (one time), and allow people to host on their own servers (which StackExchange disallows AFAIK), I'm sure that people will be interested.

Seriously though guys, I don't think it's that difficult to do in a week. Simply because; you've already got a perfect specification and model in StackOverflow. You've just got to copy it and every single feature until it works exactly the same. You even have an open source (CNProg) copy available for code reference if needed.

Do it, I'm waiting for a thread on HN from you and from ktharavaad on monday.
I'm not a single hacker so I can't really help out much; but I hope you've started by reaching out to some more female heavy communities first. Otherwise you may have a pretty severe overpopulation of Mikes.
Humorously TechCrunch has a 300px wide ad sidebar on its pages.
Hacking shepherding
Part of the reason is that he keeps his projects limited in scope and simple. If his github repo is any indication, he only works on one or two things at a given time and is able to complete them (due to limited scope). Because he doesn't take himself seriously, no one is harping on him to say that "we need this or that, because we need it for ENTERPRISE!" So he's able to keep it simple, get it done, move on, and learn something in the process.

As for how he supports himself and is able to make the time to code is a mystery to me.

http://github.com/why/potion/graphs/punch_card

Looking at his commit patterns, it's throughout the days of the week, even though the bulk of it is at night. But it's reassuring to see that even _why stops for dinner, and the reason why the rest of us aren't as productive is because we're not as consistently hacking away as he is.

As for knowing more about him, I'd say you'd probably learn more about him reading his code than digging up things like his real name.
Not having some way to explicitly note the end of a function was actually something that initially bugged me about Python. I think I'm over it now...

end
If I were in Techcrunch's shoes, I wouldn't link to tweetknots because I wouldn't want to give press exposure to a site that brazenly copied its design, css & images from Twitter.

I'm a pretty big Techcrunch hater (and the idea of TC refusing to let someone else benefit from drama-mongering is funny), but I think not linking to tweetknots is a defensible decision.
Context Free: a program that generates images from a grammar.
You're correct, they're most definitely not projects that an investor would invest in. However, if I am going to invest in someone, I want to know they can code. I want to look at programs they wrote while they were in college, or working a job. If I see a novel solution, my confidence in my investee goes way up.

Tons of people have great ideas, but their success is going to be determined by how well they can code. When you say that startups don't fail because of a lack of technical expertise, you're right in a limited sense. Startups of decent calibur will not fail because the founders don't know closures, continuations, design patterns, etc; they'll still be able to build products. They just wont have the vision to know the full range of products they are capable of building. If that's the case, you'll only last as long as it takes for a better hacker to enter the market. Experts Exchange being overtaken by Stack Overflow is a perfect example. Same idea, but because actual hackers are running Stack Overflow, it's trouncing Experts Exchange, with no signs of slowing down.
It does add value -- a thread is valuable if there's a question of fact, and there are accurate answers to the question.

It may be manipulative to pose a "question" in the form of willful ignorance, but some might just call that "creative." Social engineering for the greater good of the net?
I think the point is that 0% of the community could do it.
My browser cookie settings are default-reject. Your site should allow me to at least take a look at your home page without needing a cookie.
well, a judge is probably 60 or something. I mean by the time the internet became widespread they were thinking of retirement, not to mention that they might have secretaries and stuff so perhaps don't really need to even use a computer, so can;t blame them, blame those who are supposed to help the judges make a decision, like the clerks.
No interest in registering for something i can't see. are there even people in my area?
Code Coverage is a False Security
"This is a cultural issue. In the Ruby (or Perl) community, if you use obscure language features to do a common task in a single line of code, you will be worshipped as a god."

Just which Ruby community is this? None that I associate with, that's for sure.

To the people who voted the OP up; is it because of your own first-hand experience with other Rubyists? For all I know there are clusters of Ruby coders who encourage obscurantism, but I've not encountered them (though I've been part of debates over just what constitutes "obscure").
Average people don't care about stuff like that. Most people have more cookies than Pepperidge Farms on their computer without realizing it. Unless you're targeting cranky hackers specifically, I wouldn't worry.
If someone handed you a friendDA to sign they are indeed being a 'douche'. The site and form exist only to explain the concept.

The ideal usage is no more than saying "friendDA?" to signify a shift in tone and clarify implicit assumptions of the conversation. It's easier to say than "this next idea means more to me than the usual shit we talk about, can we keep it between us?"

It might be worth looking at Rands original post.
http://www.randsinrepose.com/archives/2008/10/19/friendda.ht...
I think you're still missing tsally's point. He pointed out those projects because they required the original implementer to advocate them. His point was not that they would make good investments, but that they probably would not succeed on technical merit alone; they required someone who understand their technical contribution to advertise them to others.

I think your second point is off, too. Your argument is that startups usually fail for non-technical reasons, and I agree. But that's what tsally was trying to say: it's a rare person who can smell-out good technical work, understand it, and realize it's contribution. This is the sort of person you'd want to have as an adviser when it comes time to determine a business model or how to advertise.
I'm going to go out on a limb and say you're also trying to drum up traffic for fwd2tweet.com, which is an interesting idea.
I suspect there is a high correlation between coders who think that cloning something like StackOverflow would be easy and those who have crappy interfaces to their own code, even if the core functionality is there.
After Amit's post, I'm now left wondering if Twitter is actually protecting their trademarks and design, or if they just targeted an egregious offender and TechCrunch is trying to gin up a trend story. In other words, I currently know nothing more about Twitter's policies and tactics than I did prior to the TechCrunch story.
Mine as well. State machines early on. However, immediately went into computer programming but that stuck with me.

If a person reads GoF carefully, they talk about it there. Also, UML has a whole state machine concept segment and Uncle Bob wrote a package years ago to handle state machines.

I wonder if programmers rely too much on RE for problems that would be best handled by FSM.

Excellent article, excellent software.
Yeah, or better yet bring back Micro Cornucopia.
Hmm.. I see he missed on something BIG time.

How will his data persist if he is not paying the bills for hosting, Amazon S3 and so on. His legacy might not live up a few months after death.

I think this is a serious issue. What you blog and write today wont exists after you unless you are a company. Soon I'll post an idea soon on aleveo.com for this, be sure I'll post back on HN. Securing the data is the easy part given it is persisted.
I'd suggest less text and more big bright green buttons. It may seem ridiculous, but people just don't read instructions. They'll avoid text like the plague until they aren't sure what they need to do, then frantically scan. Then give up.

I'd also widen the width of the page - fullscreen gives more space for communicating and will help your app feel more professional.
Sorry to see you so down-modded.

"So sorry sir, but this isn't just biased, but also bordering on a troll."

Poster is being facetious (somewhat :) ) to make a point about differences in language and community philosophies.

The semi-troll nature is pretty amusing, though. The "verse/prose" comparison is sure-fire flame-bait; I love it. I will keep that one handy ...
Oh I know. I was just trying to challenge the statement "Death is for people who don't understand technology." by pointing out a different view.

Duality is one of the triumphs of western thought. It has allowed us to escape superstition and is the basis of science and engineering. It keeps the bridges from falling down, but it is not a perfect description of reality and it falls apart if expected to be.

What I'm saying is that so far as it is meaningful to specify things* are "you" and parts of "you", these things do not end or disappear with real, physical, heart-stopping, rotting in ground death. The things which are lost with physical death are in constant flux, so they are constantly being lost anyway.

* No need for a soul or some sort of material ectoplasm. You are in constant subtle contact with everything.
Did this one real quick! :) Thanks for the tip :)
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We just opened today to the public. Just looking for some advice ;)
This is the first place a guy runs too... I'll speak to the Meg of the site and kick her in the ass to run to wherever they run to when they finish something.

Going to do that now ;)
The friendDA isn't meant to protect ideas.
It's meant to protect friendships.

(by framing a conversation to prevent honest misunderstandings that nevertheless cause feelings betrayal and violation of trust).
signed up. went through painful profile population process (alliteration w00t). the drop-downs for city is not at all fun - suggest text-field with auto-complete if you want the silos. otherwise, zip-code might be better?

checked out the member search not a single user within 200 miles of NYC?

while i understand this has just opened and the team is based in Ontario, seeding the userbase with beta-testers/soft-launch participants for major metropolitan areas is usually a good idea for sites that hinge on real-life location-centric interaction between users...

just my two cents
You should find a UI guy, but I like the concept... a lot
Wait, did you just imply that I'm psychotic because I've pointed out trolling forums can be an effective way to get questions answered when all other tactics have failed? Is this really happening?
Let's Screw Up the Entire Internet to Save Newspapers
I went there, but I don't know what it is. It's a dating site, but why am I signing up for it? I don't know what the features are at all. So I try to look around, but I'm met with a login screen. Seems like maybe I'm supposed to register there, since clearly I'm new (I just came from the I'm a Mike screen, after all), but no. It's just a login screen, and the user name and pass I thought I was registering with doesn't work..

Oh, I need to register first... by looking all over and finally find the "Join" button nowhere near where I was looking.

I give up.
Yeah, him and Zed Shaw. But their personalities seem to be on opposite poles.
No one complained that C# is significantly more verbose than Python/Ruby/Arc/whatever?
Airbus's design is an unlikely culprit for the Yemenia crash near the Comoros
Peter Rojas and Ryan Block launch gdgt, a gadget database
We don't even know his name!

That nobody's outed him is a testament to his greatness.
your drop downs in registration seem slow... heavy in javascript maybe? I really hate all these sites with 'blog' and microblog stuff... basically I'm saying how many 'blogs' do I need? I don't mind it but I'd personally rather have one that ends up on all... maybe add a way to grab feeds and post with those? and whatever you do feature wise in the future don't make messaging unfree. I refuse to pay to send a message to someone.
Thanks. My UI guy and I are sitting down together on Saturday. "Pretty" has never been my forte, so I pay other people to do it for me.