skysight-inc/HackerNews huggingface dataset:
>But it's copyright laws that allowed this to happen legally. How should Amazon decide which legal rights publishers get to keep and which rights they don't?

Legally, you can write a contract that says Amazon has the right to break into your house and repossess books they've sold you that they no longer have the rights to. Just because it's legal doesn't mean it's good business.
I still have mine right here. It's sitting next to my monitor. Unfortunately it doesn't seem to scan correctly anymore, but I wrote a few windows apps back in the day to catalog my CD collection and even one that talked to iTunes that would play a particular album when I scanned it. I really wish I could find a working one.
Amen to that. Lack of easy serving is the only disadvantage I see to current version of git over Hg.

Been a Merucial enangelist some time ago, since about 0.9.
Once switched to git, I had never looked back but for the ease of `hg serve'. Anyway, git's branch handling is a killer advantage, matches the workflows I use (small team, and single developer on multiple machines) much better than the branches with one global namespace in Hg.

About that reset/update/revert, you may want to define an alias in your ~/.gitconfig; simple as that.
What puts Git in a class of its own is the astonishing efficiency of its implementation. It is one of those rare instances where a quantitative difference becomes a qualitative one and in my opinion makes Git an engineering masterpiece.

Obviously this is related to its being a C program. The OP's error in comparing code sizes is the implicit assumption that all other things are equal.
Thats a first world solution.

Thats only an option if you have enough money not to have to have enough children to support you in your old age. In much of the world, large families ensure the well-being of parents into old-age. You should be so lucky as to marry, have a ton of kids, mostly males, have them all live. Social security bling bling! This is why poverty and high rates of reproduction go together.
Ah, we're talking about Jurisprudence! According to wikipedia, the dominant theory there is "legal positivism', where "laws are validly made in accordance with socially accepted rules". See:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jurisprudence#Legal_positivists
Perhaps a little of Zappos' culture is filtering through (though I doubt it). The most important thing that Amazon has not addressed is labeling the kindle versions with clear and concise information as to the DRM that the publisher chose (i.e. number of devices, limitations, "the publisher through us can revoke this copy from you at anytime" blurb, etc..). If they did this then I'd say they have integrity and sales of kindle versions of books would be reflective of the publishers' use of DRM. By not doing this they're trying to play both sides - appeasing the publisher at all cost and then giving a weak apology to the customers with no concrete actions to address the problem (saying "We will use the scar tissue from this painful mistake to help make better decisions going forward, ones that match our mission" is just marketing speak for - we'll continue doing what we're doing since we can't point you to concrete steps that we have taken).
It was Site Publishing software written as a Windows GUI application that generates static files.

At least it wasn't as mindbogglingly stupid as Dave Winer's MacOS/Win32 desktop/server programming-language/blogging-platform/outliner floor-wax/desert-topping
Like I said, he didn't apologize because what they did was illegal. He apologized because it was creepy and intrusive.
I got one the same way! I was pretty young at that time so it was really exciting until I, too, realized how useless it was... and now my android phone does it all and more!
Legally, you can write a contract that says Amazon has the right to break into your house and repossess books they've sold you that they no longer have the rights to.

Could you cite the law which would make such a contract enforceable?
As an aside - Just because someone is a history major, it doesn't mean they can't program. (Given how many things seem to be invented, then forgotten, then recreated from scratch and shown off as the new hot breakthrough every few years, the field could benefit from caring more about its history.)
Just use bzr instead.
Am I the only one not having any problems? I'm still on FF 3.0 as I'm waiting for some other extensions to get updates. I recently updated to Firebug 1.4 and it's been working perfectly.
From the fine article:

In a spirit of irony, ohcount has been rewritten from Ruby to C.

Wasn't it the whole point of high level languages to be able to prototype quickly, and then perhaps re-write selected parts in lower level for better performance and portability? This even happened to Hg; parts of it (diff, IIRC) got implemented in C later on for better performance.
Great way to get geeks to try your service.

(One problem: my MacPorts Perl installation didn't come with URI::Escape. Switching to /usr/bin/perl fixed it)
Yes, and it's a big fucking deal in academia -- you're bloating your publications / citations / reputation without actually contributing anything.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Plagiarism#Self-plagiarism
I'm not sure they'd actually love that.

One of their big cash cows in poor countries where they have a lot of influence is using their seeds to basically steal land. The seeds from one field that paid for them will blow into another and grow there next season. A Monsanto lawyer will then serve papers to the farmer next door who, through no fault of his own, has some Monsanto plants growing within his normal crop. Of course they sue him for some ridiculous amount he can't possibly pay and he ends up losing his land. Profitable business model.
Waiwaiwaiwaiwaiwait...

What about CityDesk? Wasn't that your first product? Did you really go straight from consulting to a successful product, or did you have a second false start? How'd you guys navigate that?

I know the Inc. audience probably doesn't need the details, but I'd be interested in them.
"Programmer-archaeologist" (credit: Vernor Vinge)
I thought it was a little dry, even for Joel, who isn't terribly interesting. He sure knows how to sell a/his product, though.
Ask HN: To "Cloud" or not to "Cloud"? (Webapp Hosting)
Hey,

I know this topic has come up a million or so times on this site, but I couldn't think of a better place for advice on a web application that is in need of hosting soon.

I've used Liquidweb's dedicated servers for most of my previous applications. They're powerful, come configured ready to go (apache, php, mysql, mail, panel, etc), and the support is by far the best. My main concern now, is scaling, server power, reliability, etc (who's isn't, right?). The webapp is built on Drupal. When clients sign up, they automatically get a private copy of the application, available via a subdomain (single codebase, separate DB). Because of that sort of system, and my desire for a massive amount of clients, scaling and server resources are a big issue (having a hundred or so subsites operating together, big cron jobs, indexing, etc). I first considered getting two dedicated, one for DB, and one for everything else. But Amazon's, GoGrids, and Rackspaces cloud offerings seem worthy of a try.

I have no experience using any cloud-like services so I don't really know what to expect. What worries me a bit, is that I don't want to have to install and configure everything needed by the servers (mail, web, db, panel, etc). I'm pretty sure none of these services come preconfigured like that, and I don't know how well any of their support is (and monitoring is probably non-existent). They also seem a little expensive to be running 24/7/365. Most of the wording on the site place emphasis on the service being for temporary server power, computation, etc.

I greatly appreciate any feedback, thoughts, advice, etc..

Thanks as always
Behavioral Economics 101: Dinner Party Application
>And if you miss the experience of launching the app directly from your home screen, you can add a bookmark to the home screen by opening Latitude in Safari and tapping the + icon > Add to Home Screen > Add.

App icons (for mobiles) have become the equivalent of the browser bookmark.

He also mention that they've built it as a web application after talking with Apple. Otherwise, I guess they would have preferred to make a native app.

Another example for me not to believe Google claims about the future of mobile appstores.
"We worked closely with Apple to bring Latitude to the iPhone in a way Apple thought would be best for iPhone users. After we developed a Latitude application for the iPhone, Apple requested we release Latitude as a web application in order to avoid confusion with Maps on the iPhone, which uses Google to serve maps tiles."

That seems a little silly. The difference in the user experience for the two of those has very little difference, except that the browser is open. It's also a good explanation for why it's taken so damn long for this to come out.
Void vs. Unit
From your linked article:

"Typically, self-plagiarism is only considered to be a serious ethical issue in settings where a publication is asserted to consist of new material, such as in academic publishing or educational assignments [13]. It does not apply (except in the legal sense) to public-interest texts, such as social, professional, and cultural opinions usually published in newspapers and magazines."
Our theories about physics and math at not objective. See string theory or recent story about 1969 nytimes retraction of "spaceflight impossible". I'd also argue that objectivity in quantum mechanics doesn't exist.

of course, I was talking about people and journalism, not some vague idea of objectivity
My understanding is that the publisher said that Amazon didn't have the right to sell it. Amazon refunded all folks who bought it.

What more could Amazon do in this situation to appease you?
The UX on this is silly!

If you gonna do it via the web integrate into gmail. When I sign onto gmail to check my mail ... automatically update my status. Also, offer an option to see where my friends are via a map overlay in gmail. Maybe even email me when a friend is X miles from me.

A separate web app to update status is a ridiculous UX!
How does it work again (I remember reading up on ant behaviour)? An ant comes straight back on the same path, when it finds food. Since ants leave pheromone markers, this path is now stronger, so other ants know and will in turn follow. A simple algorithm leading to a higher aggregated outcome.
I got a working one about a year ago from here as a curiosity:

http://www.librarything.com/cuecat

Wish I knew about them in college - would've made my temp job organizing a small department library much easier.
This is fascinating. Can you cite cases or reference material? I'd be interested in hearing this side of the story.
Though Mozilla spent years pushing their annoyingly useless "Web Developer Toolbar" exclusively
Hello amichail. What do you mean by 'interactive webinars'? Can you give a few examples? Thanks.
What if the CAPTCHA reads "Did you mean recursion?"
Some Ideas about Growth and Quality in Technology [1985]
Palm Pre Fixes iTunes Sync
Right, but I don't think that even the publisher/rights-holder could _sue_ you to force you to return the book based just on the fact that it was an illegally sold copy. _Stolen_ goods that are resold can be repossessed, but that is because they have a 'rightful owner' of a physical item. The publishers aren't trying to repossess ebooks in an attempt to fill their shelves so that the ebooks can be resold...

In cases like this, the 'best' course of action is just for Amazon to eat the costs since it was their mistake and not to punish their customers for it. Instead of just pulling the book and refunding them their money, Amazon could have sent them a print copy of 1984 and/or given them some store credit for the trouble.

Even if there was no reason for Bezos to apologize for action of pulling the book, the fact that the book was being sold illegally and Amazon had to inconvenience its customers in trying to rectify the situation demands an apology. Well 'demands' from a customer service perspective... Amazon is welcome to treat its customer-base like crap, but they'll have to deal with the consequences.

I think it's telling that Bezos didn't really put much content into the apology as to which parts -- specifically -- he is apologizing for. He could just be apologizing that the company didn't do more to compensate the affected customers per my suggestion above.

{edit} Furthermore, you say '...because breaking in is illegal, not because copyright law prohibits it,' but so far as I know copyright law does _not_ grant rights-holders the ability to repossess illegally produced copies from unsuspecting purchasers. And the way you state this is rather disingenuous. You seem to be implying that copyright-holders can take the book back from you, it's just that the 'breaking and entering' part is illegal, so they have to use some other means. {/edit}
Do Internet Start-Ups Really Need Venture Capital?
And as was mentioned above - it appears to be >$1K and sold at retail. So the T400/T500 Thinkpads etc probably don't appear on the list much - because they're not at the shops.
Mixpanel (YC S09) Takes Stat Tracking Beyond Google Analytics
I got so frustrated with the new FF3.5 + Firebug problems that I switched to Safari4. It has a beautiful Develop/Web Inspector.
Myths about the subprime crisis
Exactly. I am a huge Python fan and have contemplated giving Mercurial a go just because I know I could hack it myself if need be and that'd be cool. But I've gotten to the point where I know my way around Git well enough that I can't justify it. Besides familiarity with the commands, I've also gotten used to the workflow, which I'm sure differs under Mercurial.
See http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AbZohAS1hos
There are soooo many ineffectual CTOs, and even more ineffectual architects --- if you want to be the tech vision founder, why not stay right next to revenue and become VP/Product Management? Trying to make the (IMO notorious) CTO position work seems like playing to lose.
Get paid for user installing digsby from your website
Well, the gizmodo piece "kinda" looks interesting, but the black bar on the left is totally hozed in my firefox...
Palm WebOS 1.1 Restores iTunes Syncing
Temporary files and folders in Cocoa
That would make a good iPhone app.
Seems like a good service, but there is no one in my area using it. You need to get more people using the service to be useful. When I pressed enter in the message it didn't post.
I have been using it for a while in alpha mode, and I agree with BenRB27 that it needs more people, but that is the catch 22 of any social app, right? It seems to me that its straight to the point, i like it. I would make the search bar a little more obvious.
Why Google Won't Last Forever: print media (not) wishing luck to Google
Why Is Google Latitude A Web App And Not A Native App? Because Apple Said So.
Apple really needs to allow applications access to a modified launchd -- instead of running in the background, allow apps to register programs to execute on events like "every half hour" or "when my location changes by 200m", with the events unified into batches.

The only remaining reason to run in the background would be for playing audio.
ZBrush is amazing, but its interface is terrible. As a customer, I am very grateful with their free upgrades, but as a user I loath trying to figure out which buttons I need to avoid in order to not lose all my work (dropping tool to canvas, i'm looking at you.) For texturing, zbrush is amazing and really is an order of magnitude better (imho, my artist/friend prefers manual editing in photoshop because of the tools available in that context.)

Anyway, thats a long way to say that part of what is going to make tools development really improve is going to be making it a) easy to get started and b) fastfor expert users. Modern 3d software focuses on (b).

Definitely not an easy problem, but a fun one!

(Also, math isnt as hard as you think, just takes time to get progress on.)
Look up "promissory estoppel" in Google. That will provide all the necessary examples...if you need specific patent examples, you will need access to LexisNexis or Westlaw (legal databases), both of which are too expensive for me to use for this.
I think you guys need to rewrite your pricing page, at least tell the user what a data point is

If you send less than 20,000 data points per month,
Mixpanel is free.

If you will be sending more than that, we have a tiered
pricing model:

Contact us for high volume pricing.
* $0.35 per 1000 points - first 50,000 points sent
* $0.25 per 1000 points - next 150,000 points sent
* $0.15 per 1000 points - all points after that

This pricing includes data storage, analysis, and
bandwidth.
Zack, I'm directing this straight at you since I see you're the author of this post.

Honestly, posts like this are just detrimental to both communities. They're immature and show a complete lack of understanding of software development. Choosing the right tool for the job is rarely easy as "high level" and "low level".

Git was created to solve a specific need: Distributed development of the Linux kernel. The fact that it's been adopted by so many developers outside of the Kernel community shows that it is at minimum an adequate tool for the job. I'd go ahead and say, for those developers, Git > Mercurial. That's why they choose it.

For the developers who choose Mercurial, Mercurial > Git. That's why they've chosen Mercurial.

Please, before you publish stuff like this, remember that we're all on the same team. Next time, advocate Mercurial by talking about how it's improved your workflow. Talk about why Mercurial is better than Git for you, perhaps talk about the technical differences of the underlying implementations on a conceptual level.

That way, maybe you could help someone make an informed choice about what to use, instead of basing their decision on something as silly as the language it's written in.
btw, http://weegoh.com is the link to the site
Okay, I get it now.

But I think you were supposed to come up with a well written creative excuse. A short one-liner is not enough.
yeah, it's a bit rough. A data point is a single event you send us - when a user plays a song, pokes someone, or makes a purchase.
Partner Hookup
Yea, we all have networks we tap for talent but sometimes people don't have the bandwidth to committ to (another) new venture.

It would be cool if this site had a place where we could connect for opportunities in a slightly more structured forum.
Solange new haircut picture
I've been using mixpanel for a few weeks now -- nice software. The integration (PHP, Javascript) was very easy and the data presentation is easy to understand albeit still a bit rough.
So, if Python and Ruby are "intelligent", and C and Java are "low-level", what are Perl and shell scripts? Because git's original user interface was, in fact, built out of shell scripts and Perl.

Whatever. It's remarkable how the intelligence of the programmer never seems to enter into this guy's calculation of how "intelligent" an application is.

[EDIT: Actually, having now dug through git's source repository and looked through git on my machine, it appears that the whole command-line UI is still written in Perl and shell. Thank god! For a minute there I thought that git wasn't "intelligent"! ;]
Knocking holes, but I'm sure there were a very large number of people who didn't attend university before 1900. Probably a lot of people also left school to get a job at some point before they turned 18.
Looks very promising. I'm going to be taking a closer look for our application.
Ask HN: Good tutorials on non-spammy PR/Marketing
Hi HN, my unnamed-so-this-isn't-spam startup is looking for advice on getting our name out there and getting more eyes on our site. We're stronger on the tech side than on marketing and PR, but we're trying to learn quick. We're self-funded, so $ is on a YC scale, not VC. How do we connect with our startup audience without being disrespectfully spammy?

--

Edit: Thanks everyone for the actual feedback on our site; I appreciate the extra eyes and thought. However, I'm actually (genuinely) interested in generic strategy as well. How do other startups go from being unknown to getting press and leads/visits? Even if our design isn't ready for it, there have to be other startups who are in a similar place. Do other startups really just keep re-submitting to places like HN/launchly/TC/digg/etc until they get their dedicated userbase to spread organically? Whose advice do you read on these topics?

Thanks again, HN; you're awesome.
Have you tried opening Firebug in a new window from the window you want to monitor. This will leave the Firebug area closed on the window you're using and the net requests will collect in the Firebug window.
I totally agree with you, but they almost feel like different industries. Back then, old media and F500 companies had to hire the consultants because there was no one in-house to do it. Today, most of those corps have entire departments devoted to web design/app development. Sure, they still outsource some gigs, but it seems like the consultancy industry now focuses on smaller companies (even down to the mom-and-pop level).
How to Sell a $35,000 Watch in a Recession
The 99¢ paid would only buy the first chapter of 1984. I'm not sure customers would appreciate getting what they paid for in this instance.
Why on earth would you call shipping customers who bought a 99¢ illegal digital copy a $10 paperback "the least they could do"?

I mean the question honestly. I'm wondering where this sense of entitlement comes from.
I was born and raised in The South -- and returned 'home' a few years ago. I think this quote from the article has something to do with it:
"Physical activity can be something as simple as walking to the bus stop. That's another problem, by the way: the South doesn't have many bus stops. Public transportation is paltry, and for most people, the best way to get around is by car."

I gave up my car last year. Lack of side walks is a serious issue, as is lack of enough shoulder to walk on. And things tend to be spread out. Most folks find it incomprehensible that I live without a car. (And I mostly walk. The public transit system is a case of "You can't get there from here.")

As for "hot": I rarely have to walk the entire way to or from work. Offers of rides have picked up with the summer heat. I am routinely offered a ride with a comment about how it's just too hot out here for someone to walk. So I think a lot of folks do find the heat discourages physical activity (unless it revolves around a swimming pool).

The heat isn't usually a problem for me but sometimes the oppressive humidity is. But, then, I used to walk for exercise in The Mojave Desert -- and had to wait until after dark for it to drop down to 99F in the summer.
good stuff! I especially like the real-time stats
I have seen Mixpanel in action, and I think it's by far the best solution out there.

Congrats on the official launch.