skysight-inc/HackerNews huggingface dataset:
I'm one of the founders of FairSoftware and I have been thinking about the problem you describe for 3 years now...

You are on the right track, but I would suggest some tweaks.

1. Why does FOSS have to be given away for free? The freedom that RMS talks about is in accessing the source code and improving it. In other words, if you made donations to FOSS mandatory, you'd still have "libre" software, but not "free" (beer) anymore. Is that too shocking a concept?

This could make the amount of money flowing in significant enough that developers could start abandoning their day job and actually work full-time on FOSS. Today, if you look at who significantly contributes to FOSS, apart from a few exceptions, they are all somehow on the payroll of IBM, Sun, Intel or Google. That's not freedom.

2. In our implementation of FairSoftware, we used the paradigm of a corporation, where everyone is a shareholder and decides on future share allocation. To match better a FOSS implementation, I would recommend some sort of karma, where everyone can upvote contributions they like. In large, unstructured groups, it might work better. If I like what you do, I give you a +1. Think of it like HackerNews voting, if you will. This is somewhat subject to gaming, but nothing that can't be fixed.

It would provide a model for allocating the shares that is more in line, I think, with the FOSS community.

Finally, I disagree with the statements that if you start compensating people for contributions to FOSS in any way, you will pollute the well. If implemented improperly, it's true that you can alienate the volunteers. That's why I think the flexible karma approach would fit much better. You can receive karma without having to ask. A good leader will make sure that newcomers are welcome and give them some thank-you points as soon as they help.
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Thanks!

It started out with music. So there's a category for Music/Bands/Rock. The site provides most of the categories and tags are used for specificity. Popular tags can be promoted to categories as needed.

I use it to engage more with my favorite stuff. There's not much activity right now, but say you're interested in indie ska, or any niche category. Following that category allows you to discover new stuff as people add, rate, and discuss things. Or maybe you're in a ska band. You can create a page for you band, add some music and videos and start sending links out to your friends. They goose your page up, and all of a sudden you get a lot more exposure than you would on other music sites.

It's essentially a recommendation engine.

Age group is broad as there are categories for anything imaginable. The inspiration comes from a desire to make the long tail more accessible.

There are lots of good ideas on paper for integrated facebook apps, iphone apps, toolbars/bookmarklets, browser plugins and syndication widgets. You should be able to goose stuff from anywhere, and there are lots of fun ideas to engage users, like top five lists, quizzes, hot or not type games, etc.
...and you dont know any boys named Meg? How long have you lived in sf???
Did you put them upside down?
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Yes I did that too. if the answer is 1069 ..i tried entering 1069 and 9601 ...it does not pass. Am I missing something?
"We wanted to release a Windows version as part of Windows 98, but sadly, Microsoft has effective building security"

For once they do something good, are they still being bashed for it :)
Clarium is leveraged about 3.2 to 1, according to industry databases. Not my cup of tea, but less than many of their colleagues, especially given that Clarium is so active in debt and currency markets.

Buffet and Soros both invest in derivatives these days, they just use more common sense than your average quant when doing so. There is a huge difference between mark-to-market and mark-to-model. [It's common practice, for example, to have derivatives leveraged at 10-30X the value of a company while basing all contract prices on things like the volatility of the company's stock - and completely IGNORING the actual underlying value of said company and its prospects. Quants can build entire models projecting stock prices far into the future without even looking at the company's existing financial statements. It's ridiculous.]

I've been thinking about the relationship between financial hacking and code hacking a bit lately, because I know so many coders and quants that exhibit similar negative tendencies...to the point that they even have the same mannerisms, speech patterns, and physical tics. (To be painfully honest, my thoughts were prompted by the passing of Erik Naggum, the reading of an article about Asperbegers, and a conversation with a a quant @$$hole I occasionally have to deal with - all in the space of an hour or so.)

I think there is a (vocal) subset of both financial and code hackers that are so impressed with their own genius and the intellectual rigor of their models that they forget to keep one foot in reality and to use common sense. They forget or lose sight of the end goals and forget to be civil. They often win the "smartest person" ribbon for the day, at the expense of being unsuccessful in life. I'm oddly thankful that I lack the math or programming skills to be so dangerous. My discomfort with - and distrust of - elegant mathematic models has saved my fund from being clobbered a few times.

I'm genuinely baffled when people who are clearly so much smarter than I am can't see to apply their skills in positive or obvious ways. I'm conflicted, because I'm often jealous of their intelligence and skills, but I pity them for never seeing the forest for the trees. I think there is a subset in both types of 'hacker' communities that have this 'affliction.' They operate at a higher level of analytical/abstract thought in one way, but are crippled a bit in other regards. Different strokes and different folks make the world go 'round, I guess, but it is sometimes painful to interact with 'em.
Well, for starters - most companies don't run reporting queries on their production SQL database. They mirror, summarize, partition, index and cube a separate reporting DB, so that big/mean queries don't cause massive latency on their site/product/production system. Which isn't quite the same as using a different data-store altogether, but some kind of split is commonplace. Which means that some kind of difference between queries/applications in reports/production is already common. They key here though, is that setting up an RDBMS that can handle analytics on even a moderately large data-set is a major task, can be complex/pricey, tends to use big iron, and only scales so far before it gets very, very expensive.

But, yes there are examples of what I just described. In practice, in many problem domains, most data of interest for reports does not change once it is written, so syncing up is not a major issue.

Streamy is a good example, I think. They use HBase for the front end, and run MapReduce jobs on the back end. http://wiki.apache.org/hadoop-data/attachments/HBase(2f)HBas... Another presentation is here: http://www.docstoc.com/docs/2996433/Hadoop-and-HBase-vs-RDBM... That is Hadoop and Hadoop, which is nice - but HBase is optimized for the front end and is fundamentally different than typical batch operation of Hadoop.

CouchDB sort of takes this approach, albeit with key/value and pre-defined and materialized map/reduce views on the same store. I think this dichotomy will become increasingly common, and will be less cumbersome than it currently is as the tools mature.

Key/Value for the front end and Map/Reduce on the back end makes a lot of sense for a lot of problems, since key/value is how many applications actually work, and there is the added benefit that systems like these scale linearly on commodity hardware using FOSS, can make it cost effective - and much simpler, than scaling a traditional RDBMs as an analytic data-store. The upside to this is too good for these systems not to win a big chunk of the market. And you can have your SQL - albeit on top of MapReduce - in reports, where it belongs :)
This is a good story, well worth the time spent reading it. Mac developers devotion to duty is admirable. :)
PEP 8 specifies 4 spaces, not 1 tab. Python people generally prefer spaces to tabs, as do I, although I agree the semantically, it's a bit weird.
I think this rule about clarity-of-code > micro-performance can be generalized to programming as a whole.
It's PHP, for what it's worth. I know because the first thing I do at any site is look at their error handling. Here's theirs, trying to load http://freescreencast.com/screencasts2:

Missing controller

You are seeing this error because controller Screencasts2Controller could not be found.

Notice: If you want to customize this error message, create app/views/errors/missing_controller.thtml.

Fatal: Create the class below in file : app/controllers/screencasts2_controller.php

<?php
class Screencasts2Controller extends AppController {
var $name = 'Screencasts2';
}
?>

Not a very professional effort IMO.

Here is the server string:

Apache/2.0.63 (Unix) PHP/4.4.7 mod_ssl/2.0.63 OpenSSL/0.9.7e mod_fastcgi/2.4.2

And it's on a Dreamhost IP so probably debian (if I remember correctly?)

update: Man, I really don't like CakePHP's error messages. Check this one out:

Fatal: Confirm you have created the file : /home/.quintuplet/prodfsc/freescreencast.com/app/views/pages/getstarteds.thtml

Great, now we know the dir structure. This is something that just should never be displayed. Doesn't CakePHP have "production mode"?
True, but 200 years ago random numbers were harder to come by.
Even without going to the trouble of importing types, every Python callable has an __call__ method. Including the __call__ method:

>>> def f():
... print("Helllo __call__")
...
>>> f.__call__.__call__.__call__.__call__()
Helllo __call__

Don't use this in real life though, there's a performance penalty.
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In the case of a full text search engine, you really need that performance.

I'm not sure clarity and performance of code are inherently conflicting requirements; in any case the author wouldn't have this gap in performance between the two versions if he used C++.
What do you mean "the files are always there"?

I have never had a problem with any of the other providers in that regard either, so I'm not sure what you're trying to say?
Perfect timing, I joined facebook lastnight and while I think they have done a good job on the interface this is more to my liking, I expect to use it regulary!
On the one hand, this seems like a clever bit of lateral thinking with tangible benefits, so it makes me happy. On the other hand, a lateral move had to be found to ditch a...wait for it...patent absurdity, so I'm a little miffed that the need even existed.

Maybe someone should create a lateral-thinking patent evasion group. If they did, would we primarily be smugly satisfied with ourselves for having done so, or would we be overcome with angst over the fact that such a group might be needed?
If you email your resume to 1000 companies, you've already lost the game before it starts!

This is no way to find a good job. Plus, you already know it intuititvely, when it happens to you, you call it spam.

As a hiring manager for many years, I barely took notice of all the e-mails sent to jobs@mycompany.com. But the ones sent personally to me, from someone who has some connection (works for a competitor, uses our products, etc...) would get first class treatment.

I know it's tought out there for new grads though, because what I describe kind of requires some experience (read http://blog.fairsoftware.net/2009/05/13/being-a-new-cs-grad-... for more advice on that topic)
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I'm the co-founder, spec below. Drop me an email if any questions. peter [at] broadersheet.com

Broadersheet is looking for an enthusiastic developer who likes the idea of mixing up the news industry.

You'll have a background in computer science [or relevant experience].

We're building the next generation of the online news experience, so you should have a clue about at least one of these: text processing, news, semantics, mash-ups, AI and jQuery-fuelled web 2.0.

Ideally you'll know rails and have your fingers in plenty of github pies. We also want to talk to you if you've been focusing your time on another language/framework but are keen to learn rails. Much to teach we have.

Broadersheet is a young angel-funded Cambridge-based startup with a strong background in computer science and business. The perfect candidate will make a material contribution that will get us to our big public launch faster, better, stronger.
IMO Github made a mistake in allowing this kind of personal web page. It's very nice and all but has nothing to do with their business.
After the server has crawled over every single doc in the DB submitting them to the new view, then yes, you're done : D
I would also like to push learning by reading as a good alternative.

"Don't make me think" was a great read to get the right attitude in what to strive for.

I have heard great things from people reading the beta book "Web Design for Developers" from pragprog. (I didnt know about vertical grid layout for margins and line heights).

As for practical things I have learned: Avoid singlepage photoshops. Instead break things down into design elements. Invoking these design elements should be as simple as placing some html elements in a div with the right class. Nothing should be allowed to creep into the page that has not been extracted to a reusable design element.

This is important because all sites will evolve. And while evolving you want to keep using your design, and not add band-aid solutions.

Oh, also: Avoid wingdings. :)
Every time I read, or hear anyone speak about, working for Apple, I always think, "Who would put up with crap like that from a multi-billion dollar corporation?"

And yet, many people do. Just goes to show what good design, maniacal focus, and a charismatic leader can do, I guess.
Sounds about right, there is a graph here...

http://siteanalytics.compete.com/freescreencast.com/
I am glad you are getting modded back up from the grave; I agree and appreciate someone calling a spade a spade.

We don't always need to get into thesis-length technical arguments about the merits of so and so viewpoint - sometimes an article is just bullshit and deserves to be dismissed as such.
'This release is dedicated to my grandfather, Walter Gordon Heffron, who introduced me to Unix 30 years ago, and who passed away yesterday.'
That was not their duty to do that. they were not on a pay roll, and nobody assigned that project to them. It seems they wanted to do some kind of commitment. Nice to see some people works not just for money, but for a higher good. I wish more people, and not just in software industry, have this kind of motivation.
Frequently used web design objects that comes in PSD format, Web Elements Kit
Thanks for that info. I feel like people are omitting crucial info when describing these new datastores.
I'm on record as saying that SourceForge's UI was a crime against non-technical users

I'll say it's a crime against all users, technical and non-technical alike.
SourceForge is the textbook example of how to not do it.

This is one of the first times I have seen Sourceforge conscientiously optimize for the experience of the passive user of software rather than the developer

Excuse me but if you seriously claim that SF has ever been "optimized" for developers then please share some of that stuff you're smoking - must be damn good.

I just looked at the ticket trackers and mailing list archives. They seem to be exactly the same as before - only with a new, glossy stylesheet. Exactly the same means that they are still the worst implementation that I have ever seen. Perhaps the worst implementation that was ever created. Many people cite bugzilla for a hostile UI. SF is worse, much worse.

The ridiculously flawed download page has been mentioned plenty of times - and hasn't changed either with the new design.

So, what's left?

The homepage link (you know, the one to the actual project homepage, where most people want to go first) is still microscopic. The old placebo links that everyone has learned are not worth clicking are still the same (Why is there a "documentation" link when there is no documentation?).

The wiki, oh... you have a wiki. First time I see that, and at a glance I don't think I want to see it again...

Well, I could go on for a while but it's not worth it because all of this is so stupidly obvious. It's not rocket science. Look at what the others do. Look at http://launchpad.net. None of the other services is perfect, mind you, they all have their flaws and rough edges. But there we are talking about flaws and edges on an otherwise usable product. SF on the other hand is not even a base to build on. Some of the backend code may be re-usable but the frontend is toxic waste, broken beyond repair.

It has always been that way btw. SF was crap from the get-go and never changed. People beared with it in the early days because they were the first offering of this kind (afaik) and hey, free CVS is free CVS.

But that was almost 10 years ago. We have better options today.

PS: Sorry for saying "you" all the time. You are probably not affiliated with SF. It just came out that way and I'm now too lazy to go back and fix it. - It's ofcourse not aimed at you personally but only at SF.
Did you think of the plural ?
That would just be more expensive and less reliable. buttons would do the trick, except for the case you want to have lights on in the moment you are leaving your house.
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I don't care about a resume or a cover letter. Show me an interesting github profile and I'll recommend you for hire.
How to convert Youtube videos to other video formats.
Rather recent yes, I think it's a few months old.

I'm a bit torn on that one. I think the move to tags makes sense (the categories never worked well) but overall I liked the old stylesheet and layout much better.

In a nutshell I would say the freshmeat.net UI went from "great" to "bearable". There's just way too much visual clutter now, whereas the old layout was amazingly clean and straightforward.
ESR on Microsoft vs TomTom case: http://esr.ibiblio.org/?p=819
Or it would have to inherit the method from a common iterator class. Which gets to the heart of the Ruby/Python thing: In Python inheritance just isn't as stressed, since people prefer duck-typing to isinstance. On the other hand, since you can reopen classes in Ruby, it's not as crazy to use the modification of a common base class as a means of making a method work with a wide variety of object types.
USPTO Patent #7075962 (Tridgell et al): Method for circumventing USPTO Patent #5579517.
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They gave a talk at Google about it:
http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=-7497796873809571567
"As for the whole "5" * 2 vs. 2 * "5", I must admit to not understanding where you're coming from. I don't see how you could expect any other kind of behaviour from an object orientated language."

Python has a __rmult__ method. If you do A * B, first it internally calls A.__mult__(B) then if that raises TypeError, it tries B.__rmult__(A). It's pretty elegant, I think. For Ruby, it wouldn't look as nice to do A.r* though, I guess, but it would be a nice bit of functionality.
"And why would an integer have a method for converting itself to a string? Or an array?"

You know that under the covers in Python str(1) works by calling (1).__str__(), right? That's why you can make str(my_custom_class) work.
The Mercurial subrepos are similar to and inspired by git's submodules (but, presumably, less user hostile). You can use this to group your app with the libraries it depends on, for instance.
"Obviously in this case the order of the arguments matter."

It's not obvious in terms of intuitiveness, no. Why not extend the Integer class to know to call mystring's * method when their order is reversed? That would be intuitive.
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My experience with SQL has been mostly awesome. I like it way more than anything else I do (coding wise).
Oh don't get me wrong, I use CouchDB and love it. I think it's going to be big.

It is very good at what it does. But it is not good at, nor ever will it be good at, ad hoc queries like the GP describes. The second time you query that view it will be blindingly fast. The first time, however, it has to build the view index from scratch, which in a large-ish DB might well take hours.

You just can't assume you will have pretty fast "random access" queries like you would on MySQL or similar. Of course, it goes the other way as well, and there are many examples of views you can trivially do in Couch which would be prohibitively expensive in MySQL.

As always, you pays your money and you makes your choice.
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Really? Cassandra can write 416TB, 666GB per second? If Cassandra can write 50GB in 0.12ms, then it can write over 416TB in a second and 25petabytes per minute. Which clearly isn't true. Of course, that quote would also mean that MySQL can save 166GB per second.

If you click through to the slides, they are actually referring to latency. The slides say that for accesses of > 50GB, Cassandra's latency is 0.12ms, and MySQL's is around 300ms.

This, of course, has very little to do with the rate at which data is written.

(Yay for IT journals... quality information for PHBs...)
there is some sound advice in this post - "listen to all of the financial/investment experts and then do the exact opposite".

If I had done that consistently over the last few years I would be quite wealthy now.
Service Catalogs and the Cloud
In regards to books, I would recommend at least checking out Steve Krug's Don't Make Me Think, possibly some other design orientated books and then read up upon usability in general.

For example, take a look at: http://www.usabilitypost.com/ or http://www.uxbooth.com/ and http://useit.com/

You may wish to find a usability consultant too, or look for someone who hasn't used your app before with experience in this area to give you a few pointers.
Hibernate generates optimal SQL in all situations for all databases and their different dialects? Really?