skysight-inc/HackerNews huggingface dataset:
> Thought experiment: what could that disruptive niche be?

Someone needs to write/buy a search engine and then build a really rich API into the internals of it that lets 3rd parties write customized search engines. How about an auto parts search engine, or a search engine for spanish-speaking people living in southern california? What about a Christian search engine, or a meme search engine?

When someone can empower 3rd party developers to make the same kinds of decisions as Google does, but with different tradeoffs, and they really put the full institution behind supporting that, I think:

A) Google will have a hard time competing because they won't be able to give the personal attention to the needs of what is, effectively, a community of modmakers.

B) This new company will capture the long tail of search. Only a sliver of that is covered right now, with a scattering of niche search engines (Google Scholar, etc).

C) The number of users could be VERY large. It could be the cable to Google's broadcast television.

D) Getting started wouldn't require any massive technological achievements. Just find an underserved niche where even a really really stupid search engine would work better than Google. Write it, figure out how to make money off it it, grow. Start with something that requires only a small index. Slowly expand into additional niches according to what will help keep the company and the tech moving forward.

Google's bet is that any information you can glean from someone coming to a niche search engine can be reasonably approximated with contextual information in the query. That's proved true for many queries, but the key is to find the queries where it's really not.
Just tried it on Bing: http://www.bing.com/search?q=Netherlands+qnx+a+quick+buck

Worked for me.

Edit: Different query from yours, my bad. I mixed both your links up.
I don't care about arguments with athesyn. Care to point out a ridiculous visceral lie, or was it enough just to tell feminists just what you think of them?
Startup hiring a CTO but has already decided their stack to be Python
Ha yes, I just looked at that and thought: How would I explain the difference in method calls in Obj-C and JS in 7 words. i.e. Something thats actually quite different...
What's the definition of "the best stuff"? Collaborative filtering with user click data? Just curious.
What's blocking Bertha: a long steel pipe
org-mode + emacs.
I might say 10. But that depends on your definitions of `command` and `programming language`.
Some might count CSS or Shell script as languages ... and some might count `command` as being able to get in shape after 1week, others might disagree. Very subjective.
I doubt Google has as simplistic view of their business as you do.

Google's bottom line is the same as everyone else's: making money.

Currently, the ads are very lucrative for them and they use the money from ad business to both expand the ad business (like investing in YouTube or Android) AND try to find other sources of revenue (e.g. Google Fiber or Google Apps for enterprise).

You can't assume that Google is terminally stupid and can't see past their current business model.

Google Fiber is not free. If people use Comcast, they'll see as many ads from Google as if they were using Fiber. Google can estimate how much ADDITIONAL ad revenue they could expect per user from Fiber vs. Comcast usage and that's probably not much.

At $70 or $120/month, this can be very profitable business (long-term, of course, initial investment is huge). Outside of US, companies make good profit at lower prices.

Same goes for self-driving cars: transportation is a massive industry. Taxis alone are $10 billion industry. Personal car ownership and use is massive. If Google could get a piece of that business, it could be more profitable than their ad business.
I guess I won't buy toshiba at all now. I will also tell my friends to not buy toshiba.
The tough part is the standard libraries.

Syntax and semantics can be picked up really quickly. I could read and correctly modify code in a dozen languages. I could produce a scheme interpreter in a bunch of languages without much hassle, but if i don't pick the domain, i'm just not fluent.

I like to think i'm strongest with Java. There's a bunch of standard libraries i understand really well, but there are so many dark corners. For example, I'm aware of the existence of the x509 crypto stuff, but it would take me a while to use it correctly.
Whats crazy is Microsoft believing this is an acceptable solution rather than fixing/patching it.
I haven't had any syncing issues, but I've had a hell of a time with Evernote insisting on formatting my notes and changing characters even when I make the note Plain Text.

A lot of what I use(d) Evernote for was shell snippets and other bits of code, and having it mangle my quotes into other characters, and randomly insert newlines was a bit of a nightmare.

Thanks to this thread I've found nvALT and I'm really loving it so far.
Frankly, my main takeaway with respect to Aaron Swartz was his willingness to terribly damage the people close to him. Could he have had insufficient self esteem to understand that consequence? Because if the answer to that is no, his behavior becomes sociopathic and all the blame that is being thrown around is misdirected.
Google acquiring Timely maker Bitspin
Nice book, but please change the title to note this is a 221-page PDF!
Provocative! I write for a living, and I've got two teenage sons learning all the standard high-school writing rules. I tell them that the rules are like using glue or nails to make furniture.

It's possible to defy the rules and produce something awesome. But often you just need to produce something that's reliable, sturdy, useful and quick. Learn the rules first. Use them most of the time. Break them when you've got a rare, wonderful reason to do so.

Blogging is the most conversational form of writing out there. The best bloggers conjure up structures that are so subtle and sophisticated that everything seems totally free-form. Getting that right consistently is a gift. Switching into conversation mode 100% of the time and hoping for great results is like pressing together some notched pieces of wood and hoping for the best.
Written in a lot of languages so far, in most of them with projects/systems of my own (as in not just adding fixes or functionality to an existing work). But probably not being able to produce (no google/manual peeking) a complex program with many of the ones im not currently programming. Should be more than 15 years that i touched anything on pascal or rexx and also a lot have lookalike structures where i could mix a particular syntax of one into another.
An 8086 PC emulator in 4043 bytes
> It seems clear that the window message pump was being used by the Oracle driver in a way that made it break when hosted in a GUI application.

It's not clear to me, but maybe you know something I don't. What is it exactly that makes this clear? And what is the "way" in which the message pump is being used that makes it break in a GUI app?
I have the same problem as the person you're responding to, and writing is not a form of thinking (for me, at least) - generating anything to put onto the page feels like an insurmountable task. I like the GP's suggestion of making a speech, I'm likewise much better at vocalizing than writing.

I'm pretty sure there is some underlying difference and it would be good to know what it is - I was diagnosed with dyslexia when I was 14, which never really felt like a satisfying answer, though I do have some dyslexic-ish symptoms (I tend to spell phonetically when I'm very tired and often type word-correct anagrams - like "never really left like a satisfying answer", above).
I am sorry to say this, but I have been trying to move to DDG for a while now. Its currently my default search where ever I can make it a default search, and frankly, for me, it's pretty much useless. Most results point to US sites, and in most of my search cases, thats no good. Unless my search is incredibly simple, I end up back on google.co.uk. OK, ethics wise, I don't like google one little bit, but in the end, google gives me useful results. DDG rarely does.

I simply do not know how people, and there is a lot of them, come to the conclusion that DDG results are in any way better than google, apart from the fact that DDG is not google. It would not totally surprise me if people were more making do with DDG because its not google to make a point, and as a result being over generous about its utility.

Maybe for Americans, DDG does give better results, I cant say, but I'd like to know on what criteria that is based. But for me, a non American, like I say, DDG is regrettably mostly useless.
nice. open source too according to this: https://github.com/benweet/stackedit - so it stores the files locally and then you can share / store docs across drive and other storage sites including wordpress and more. this one deserves another look.
> Maybe the ultimate solution is a personal wiki [...]

Maybe this: http://zim-wiki.org (haven't used it myself yet though)
This is the science behind your hangovers
"three sections structure"

Intro, development and conclusion? Será?
Google Buys Bitspin, Premium IAP Content Is Now Free
Except the report I linked provides data and statistics that show women entrepreneurs earn less than their male counterparts across OECD countries, which is specifically what I was talking about.
Coalition governments are possible in Canada, and have occurred before. In the case of the last election, the votes were split such that the Conservatives won a majority of seats.

It seems though that it only may be possible at election time. A few years prior to the election in which the Conservatives gained a minority, the Liberals and the NDP attempted to form a coalition government and the Governor General (The queen's representative in Canada) ended up proroguing parliament on Stephen Harper's behest. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Prorogation_in_Canada#History
This is an excellent article to read. I am very impressed with the thoughts. Here are some of the best quotes(for those who r in hurry or that TL;DR):
We’re a long way from where we need to be — and end that will require governments to change, too.
"No one tries to judge what uses people will have for it,” he said, “but having the information enables people to derive whatever they need.”
‘Are we saving money with open data?’ The only question I would suggest public agencies should focus on is ‘Are we doing the right thing? Are we making our data available and machine-consumable to our communities?’”
Website still isn't working...
And Rand Paul works for Rand Paul, and with the Republicans that he has chosen to throw in with. The NSA would be in the exact same state of capability and behavior today if a Republican were in the Whitehouse, and Paul would not be suing.

This is about Rand Paul, using any available brick to throw at Obama, the idea being that as Obama's fortunes fall Paul's rise.
Not fucking Evernote. This poll is already tainted by Valley startup Mac hipsters moving to Vietnam taking only their iPad Mini and a pair of trousers.
> ... because it had effectively become a “showroom” for Internet retailers—people would see books in the store and then buy them online.

Which is what all the real-life stores are facing right now. I don't claim to have the solution, but I tend to buy in stores because I enjoy to have my product today, with better service in terms of refund policies, and that I can talk with a human being face-to-face if the thing is faulty.

I live in Denmark where we have pretty good consumer protection, I suspect the difference between Amazon and a store in the US might be a lot different.
What happens when our software has broken privacy settings
Beautiful app and beautiful ads. Would like to see that it thrills and gets popular.
Pen and/or pencil and paper. Mead, Moleskine, Rhodia all make great paper notebooks along with Staples, OfficeMax having house brands. Pens and pencils are available from a variety of sellers as well.

Lacks text searchability, distributed backups and portability (it's not on your phone all the time).

Has multiple tactile benefits. Can always be scanned for digital backup if need be. Far less likely to be hacked, never has a version that randomly deletes a note. Forces you to keep notes in an actual place not essentially a series of memory addresses of local and/or remote computer.

As someone who's played with nearly every item on this list from tiddlywiki to vim wiki to the mind mappers evernote, .plan files, etc etc. Paper is still the most flexible. I just think differently when I'm not limited by keyboards and/or almost OK drawing interfaces (aka penultimate, paper (the app), etc).

A little DoxieGo scanner and paper is the place to be. Otherwise you'll find yourself looking back at your vast cache of notes in cloudnot.es (or whatever new YC15 startup comes up with the new hot note app that revolutionizes your life) that document your thoughts from 2014-2019 and you'll end up wondering... what really mattered here? How do I save this... Why did I save this? Do I need this note on what I wanted to buy my ex-boyfriend for valentine's day 2017? Etc etc.

The ephemeral nature of paper is perhaps its biggest feature, forcing you to save it or delete it. Or just go full Warhol and save everything: http://edu.warhol.org/aract_timecap.html
How does this "fix homelessness in SF?"

Same number of homeless but now they have blankets and books too?
This is in relation to the previous post: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=6939710
IME, Amazon US's customer service has never been an issue.
Eerst gratis testen, dan pas betalen bij Goldenvegas.be
SQL or NoSQL and search engine solutions
Do you have any source for the free upgrade? I've heard it both ways but no one's actually shown their source.
I am familiar with the design of message queues, though not specifically with the design of Windows message pumps.

> If you violate the run loop's threading requirements it's not totally inconceivable that a mouse event could affect behavior.

That's true. But the possibility remains that the design of Windows message queues is so byzantine and imposes so many arcane requirements on the developer that it is easy to miss something. In which case the question of fault is still arguable even if the immediate bug is in Oracle's code. I have a very hard time imagining any circumstances under which an OS could allow a mouse event to impact a database driver -- even if the database driver is buggy -- and still be considered well (or even reasonably) designed. But I'm certainly open to the possibility that I've overlooked something.
I don't think your restatement is entirely fair -- "if people don't use a product at all it's a bad product" would be closer.

Even that's somewhat reductionist, of course; there are a lot of good products that we use only occasionally. But there are some products which are designed to be with you most of the time: smartphones are an obvious example. Watches are another one. How about a smartwatch? I think it'd be fair to say that if you're wearing your smartwatch most of the time when you go out, it's a success for you; if you don't like wearing it -- for whatever reason, whether aesthetics or because it isn't that functional (or both) -- and mostly only trot it out to show people, it's really a failure for you. If most of the smartwatch's buyers are in the "only trot it out to show people" camp, the product is arguably a failure.

And, I think it's fair to use the same criteria for Google Glass. Are most of the people who own a Glass using it regularly, or are they only trotting it out when it'll be cool to show people? Scoble is, whether he puts it that way or not, effectively arguing the latter. Gruber is in turn saying that if that's true, it means that Glass -- even if it's a marvelous technology showcase -- isn't a good product.

(As for the contention that Gruber will argue history is relevant when it suits him and irrelevant when it doesn't, well, we all do that, and I think we'd all claim that we're doing it because in some cases history is relevant and in other cases it isn't, right? Whether Android will "windows" iOS depends on whether you think the mobile computing market will follow the same trajectory as the PC market did; if you think the concept of Glass will take off one day, maybe dramatically, but Glass itself will be something of a footnote, then the Windows Tablet comparison is apt.)
Paper notebooks for me too. I like little bound ones that I can fit in a jacket pocket.

If I look at what notes I can still access after 1, 10, or even 20 years, it's all paper.

I love Freemind too. I use it for the "what do we know about this thing" phase of problem solving.
Memorizing syntax is pretty useless in the real world because you can just reference syntax using Google. It is much more important to know how to think (and in turn, code) than to know a language fluently. If you know PHP well, you can almost certainly code well in Python if you wanted to jump into a project, the same with MySQL and postgres, etc.
heh, totally forget that I once knew Groovy, thanks for the reminder.
I also use Zim.

The nice thing is that Zim uses plain .txt files without the need of a database. So you can also view and edit your notes/pages using any text editor instead of Zim itself. Making backups is also very easy this way.

I keep these text files in sync across my devices using owncloud. That way I can also use it on my smartphone by just viewing the plain text. No extra apps necessary.
I didn't claim those are identical, but you are cherry-picking facts, what about:

- syntax (curly braces, star for pointers and dereferencing, ampersand for getting the address etc., cleaned up for faster parsing and with some genuinely new things)

- iteration via for loops (no iterators, no map/fold/...)

- structs for data abstraction

- layout of variables in structs corresponding directly to memory layout

- argument passing by value or via pointers

- very weak typing

Look at it from the other side, what new things has a C programmer coming to Go learn, besides the syntax? Slices, goroutines, make/new, and some little bits related to packages/runtime, all hardly difficult concepts. Some old habits do not work anymore, mostly minor things. Finally both authors (Thompson and Pike) were C coders for decades...
Electronic Bank Robberies - Stealing Money from ATMs with Malware
Published on Dec 29, 2013

Electronic Bank Robberies
Stealing Money from ATMs with Malware

This talk will discuss a case in which criminals compromised and robbed an ATM by infecting it with specially crafted malware. The successful compromise of an ATM can easily result in the loss of several hundred thousand dollars.
Most automated teller machines (ATMs) run regular Windows systems and can be controlled like any other computer. The first public demonstration of an ATM hack was given in 2010 - but how bad is this threat really? It turns out there is a multi-million dollar business behind ATM hacks. This talk reveals how these criminal gangs operate by disclosing information obtained through forensic analysis of a real compromise. In the analyzed case some malware was used to control the hacked machine that was written specifically for the targeted ATM brand. By reverse-engineering this malware, we gained unique insights into the technologies used by the intruders. The malicious features range from balance monitoring over cash-out commands to the wiping of the machine to cover up traces of the attack. They can be accessed through special number codes that are entered directly via the machine's number pad. Hooking techniques and overlay windows are used to display the status of the system on the ATM monitor. We will further discuss that operations of this scale can only be performed by professional crime groups that not only have the technical capabilities to develop such special malware, but also have access to insider information about the design of ATMs and who know how the targeted banks operate.
Sounds like Yahoo Boss: http://developer.yahoo.com/boss/
And that's been around for years already.

Essentially, you get the Yahoo results, and decorate, filter, reorganise, improve, combine as you wish. So you get the organic results, which you can then innovate upon.

And it has survived the transition from Yahoo-powered search results, to Bing powered search results:
http://searchengineland.com/yahoo-boss-moves-from-yahoos-ind...

Which means you have API access to the second most-used search engine in the industry. So what better way to voice your discontent with Google by supporting a competitor.

Running a successful search engine is expensive, it needs continuous investment into R&D. That's why Yahoo took a step back and partnered with Bing instead. The level of investment needed just to hold status quo with the existing market runs into billions of dollars a year, something Yahoo baulked at. Microsoft, however, were still strongly inclined to invest that every year.
The reality is, spambots will get through it eventually no matter what, and you will only end up increasingly inconveniencing your visitors. (How pissed would you be if you copied an email address somewhere and it appeared in reverse?) With email being what it is today, it's up to the receiving end to have good anti-spam software running.
Chasing a Memory Leak in a Haskell app
Anecdotally, I find customers are fine with (enjoy?) any physical / mechanical solution to a computer problem. It's in usually putting them back in their comfort zone. Wiggling the mouse is easier to explain than control panel anyway...
This strategy makes a lot of sense to me. I really like the "deprecated warnings" to "explicit failure" transitions, IMO this works really well, though I only have experience with it at a library level using semver. So cant say much about point #1, except that this is essentially what you're doing when you test agains xlib-head branch.

Aaron implies that this approach was not taken with Python (non-py guy here), could someone tell me what the reasoning was behind that? To much legacy code in Py2 code base, just wanting to start from a clean slate, or what?

EDIT: (to add another question :) could you efficiently accomplish what Aaron is talking about, what would be the best way to go about this? @pak would you really have to load 2 stdlibs, is there no (efficient) way around syntax errors?
You bet. A loud laughing noise came out of my vocal cords. I felt like I'm in IRC in the early 90s. Remember that feeling? Laughing, out loud? Feels great. Kids today with their loling will never know....
How to deal with a difficult programmer on an open source project?
One interesting aspect of a paper notebook is that you know exactly what information you're carrying across a border. Of course paper notes have security issues, but all of those issues are known and easy to understand. The front door is open, but there are no back doors.
The simplicity of this is very appealing.