skysight-inc/HackerNews huggingface dataset:
In mid/late 90s I was working at MIT's university network (Athena) and my memory is similar, but different from yours. Perhaps because we weren't a Windows shop. I did actually work on a dual-boot x86 box sometimes, but the dual OSes were Linux and BSD.

We were still doing everything in C, but the cool kids I listened too were saying skip C++ if you want something OO but C-like and go straight to Java. So when I saw Per Bothner's Scheme-to-JVM compiler (Kawa) I knew my next implementation of BRL should use it.

What surprised me was the number of people at MIT who said, "Yuck, Scheme" when I was pushing it as the best syntax for web development (this after 12 years of me ignoring it in favor of C). I think a lot of people did not have a good experience going through 6.001 (SICP), even though other people, like me, loved it. I hate to say it, but what really suppressed the widespread adoption of Lisps may have been SICP.
Web Apps That Make Mashups Easy
Thank you for not using JavaScript unnecessarily.

In fact, thank you for not requiring me to create an account or register or asking if I wanted to receive valuable offers via e-mail.

I'll comment back if it finds anything, but as far as the paint on the outside goes, it looks nice and is something I would definitely use.

[edit] - technically you did create an account and I did have to click a link to activate. I still stand by the thank you (and that's just smart going anyway).
No thanks. Setting aside the ethics of piracy, I'd rather not have to worry that Amazon is going to push out an update that I'll have to crack just to keep using the device I already bought.

I'd rather just live without it until something better and more open comes along. It's like deciding to use Linux instead of pirating Windows.
As a Person A can i file a lawsuite againt person B company?

Aside from exceptional situations (e.g., being declared a vexatious litigant) you can always file a lawsuit.

From what you've said, though -- and with the standard caution that I'm not a lawyer, this is not legal advice, and I'm sure I don't know all the details -- I think it would depend on what happened when "Person A & B decide[d] to start a company". If Person A can show that there was mutual intent to create an equal partnership, he would probably get something out of a lawsuit; a lack of paperwork does not invalidate an agreement (provided that Person A can show that such an agreement existed). It's even possible that a court would decide that Person B had acted to willfully defraud Person A by incorporating the company on his own.

Of course, all this would go out the window if Person B could show that the partnership between himself and Person A had been terminated (either by mutual agreement, or by abandonment).

Short answer: Go talk to a lawyer, and provide him with far more details than you've provided here.
Thanks, seriously. I don't know that I am extraordinarily resilient or if the circumstances just sound worse to an outsider than they really were. In either case I don't have to think too hard to come up with somebody who has it worse than me, which is always a sobering thought.
I think the site is OK, but I get this same general functionality from doing a search on craigslist and then adding that search as an RSS feed. While I don't get INSTANT updates, I'm in my RSS reader often enough during the day that I usually see things quickly enough. Still, not a bad idea, and if you're really looking to be the first person to see a new post, I can see how this would come in really handy.
The same could be said of any language. Perl's just gotten beat up on by fans of certain other upstart languages that want to steal some of Perl's glory.

In five or ten years there'll be some other language fad, and those languages will get their turn at being the whipping boy.
Reminds me of the fun people have passing FreeCell RNG seed numbers around. Anybody who finds a particularly tough one will write it down and pass it around to the other FreeCell addicts. Then there's a small local mini competition to see who can get it done first.
I love that essay, and wish that my junior high self could have read it. It would have given me a much better perspective on what was about to happen to me.
How depressing. I think we all knew this deep down, but he puts it very eloquently. IE will always be holding the web back, at least for the entire forseeable future. Even as a lifelong cynic, this still bummed me out.
Subsequent versions of IE have gotten dramatically better, but the time delta between versions is too long. From its wikipedia page:

IE5: September 1997
IE6: August 2001 (+4 years)
IE7: October 2006 (+9 years)
IE8: March 2009 (+11.5 years)

Safari, Firefox, et al do not have a similar lag and have been able to implement newer standards much more quickly. WebKit, for example, is in active development, and the version of the framework in use by Safari is updated fairly regularly.
Great link! I am just surprised that amazon cannot explain this to the publishers. It would seem that they have a good deal of clout with the publishers being such an online presence. If they went the iPod route and once it gets on the device it is hard for the average person to get the data back off. That should satiate the publishers that they are not going to get easily ripped off. Of course the hackers here know to download a piece of software to transfer the songs off an iPod but 80%(not a real statistic) does not know how to do this.
It's not like the IE6 people are also going to be running Firefox to do a side-by-side comparison of how your page renders. Unless they have some new and fascinating psychological abnormality, of course.
This is essentially what Andy Clarke suggested: http://forabeautifulweb.com/blog/about/universal_internet_ex...
I'm astonished by how little DRM bothers people in general. The idea that I can buy something and not own it at the same time is ridiculous. It'd be like buying a car and having it taken back in 5 years. We make a distinction between "buying" and "leasing" for a reason. Except on the Internet, where everybody tries to get you to buy things and apply leasing rules to what you just bought. It's completely asinine.
I found Diamond's _Guns, Germs, and Steel_ very informative, but in light of this year's lawsuit ( http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jared_Diamond#Controversy ), I'm not sure how much of it was just made up.
It does, albeit too slow. According to our ranking site http://ranking.lt/ IE share felt below 50% for the first time. One should have in mind, that this is not stats from some geek/webdev site, but collected by online advertising company, so it is even more likely that the stats are skewed in favor of IE.
errant.me.uk 4.38 kB
Apparently Chrome supports greasemonkey: http://mashable.com/2008/12/15/google-chrome-greasemonkey-sc...

(All Stylish styles are available as greasemonkey scripts.)
What kind of site is it? An obviously important aspect that you didn't mention is building a site that people will be interested in and care about...

If nobody cares about what you made then all the ads, SEO tricks, and blogging in the world won't help you.
From the TOU: http://www.craigslist.org/about/terms.of.use

u) use automated means, including spiders, robots, crawlers, data mining
tools, or the like to download data from the Service - unless expressly
permitted by craigslist;

If you are serious about this site and you think that it could become a largish site you should definitely get permission.
Any reasons for a newbie to learn Perl instead of Python these days?
I wouldn't be surprised if IE6 outlasted IE7 as all the people who could upgrade from IE6 (not locked down corporate machines that need to access outdated intranet sites) have no reason to stay on IE7 either.

In that respect I think and hope he's wrong. If anyone's writing internal business apps today that will only ever work on one version of one browser then they should be taken out and shot.
That's shocking. esp. a book such as 1984. why would they do that? Did the customer service provide any specific reasons why the book was pulled out?
39k, compressed - including a jquery and ga.js (jquery from google and ga locally, ironically). On a reload it's 2k.
Off-topic: Why do people put [scribd] in a post title when linking to a pdf?
Wouldn't putting "[pdf]" in the title be more accurate?
"Zoho Writer is not supported in Safari
Please switch to IE 6.0+ or Firefox 2.0+ version for better experience"

Erm yeah... suicide. Even Microsoft is going to be supporting Safari.
(Disclosure: I work at Palm)

The SDK that was released is the same SDK that almost all of Palm's apps are built on. If, as the article says, it's a solid 1.0 release with a "nice OS and user interface", then it must be possible to build great software with the SDK.
When you link to a PDF I think the site puts the [scribd] in - which links to a scribd'd version of the PDF.

(it took me a while to figure this out :) stumped me for an age when I first noticed)
If you visit http://crgslst.com/ -- a multi-city search site -- it pops up a message about how they were blocked.

They also disabled Jeff Atwood's multi-city search: http://www.codinghorror.com/craigslist/ (he posted the letter he got from them)

Then again, http://www.housingmaps.com/ is still functional, and might be the most popular Craigslist mashup -- I'm assuming they have a deal in place with CL.
> But users are becoming more demanding in terms of user experience and as they realize that the alternative browsers let them have nicer typography and cool desktop-like animations/transitions they will begin to demand this kind of thing.

While many users may like these things, "demand" seems a bit strong.

And then there are the folks who don't like "cool desktop-line animations/transitions".
"I made the perfect accessory, but it only works with electric cars. GM abused their car monopoly to make gas engines, not electric engines, costing me money.

GM owes us all money. GM must be stopped, and GM must pay."

(I'll also note that you didn't give Microsoft any money when IE helped you make money, and they're not your insurance policy when you don't make money, either.)
To me it's indicative of just how much money and resources these guys have that they can think this and still, in the meantime, throw so much into Android, despite it being just a way to get there a bit quicker. It seems like a large outlay of money that is at best very tenuously linked to increased profits for Google.
Http://perldoc.perl.org/ (redesigned)
Somehow this sounds like a pitch for a TV show...
Does Palm ship any games?
Person A & B decide to start a company. Both didn't sign any document for the company. Never signed it.

Uh Oh, Spaghetti-O ! Been there, done that. Somebody's gonna get fucked...

As a Person A can i file a lawsuite againt person B company?

Yes, you can. Of course, your estimated costs and chances of a satisfactory outcome are questions that only a lawyer can answer. I can tell you (again, from experience) that it will be long, costly, and painful for everybody involved (whether you ultimately receive satisfaction or not.)

If you feel you've been wronged, and that you've exhausted all of your other options, lawyer up.
Aww, thanks very much. I have a few heart defects, but things had been quiet for about five years until I had the cardiac arrest.
Ask HN: Books on Computer History
I've been starting a personal collection of stories about the history of the computer industry- I'd love any suggestions of books that other people enjoyed or that I might want to take a look at.

Which books have you enjoyed? Which ones are worth avoiding?

I've included a list of some of the ones that I've found, but I'd love any thoughts.

Revolution in The Valley: The Insanely Great Story of How the Mac Was Made

Accidental Empires: How the Boys of Silicon Valley Make Their Millions, Battle Foreign Competition, and Still Can't Get a Date

Making Silicon Valley: Innovation and the Growth of High Tech, 1930-1970

High Stakes, No Prisoners: A Winner's Tale of Greed and Glory in the Internet Wars

Founders at Work: Stories of Startups' Early Days
Computing in the Middle Ages: A View From the Trenches 1955-1983

iWoz: Computer Geek to Cult Icon: How I Invented the Personal Computer, Co-Founded Apple, and Had Fun Doing It

Digital Retro: The Evolution and Design of the Personal Computer

The Victorian Internet: The Remarkable Story of the Telegraph and the Nineteenth Century's On-line Pioneers

Where Wizards Stay Up Late: The Origins Of The Internet

What the Dormouse Said: How the Sixties Counterculture Shaped the Personal Computer Industry

The Dream Machine: J.C.R. Licklider and the Revolution That Made Computing Personal

DEC Is Dead, Long Live DEC: The Lasting Legacy of Digital Equipment Corporation

Priming the Pump: How TRS-80 Enthusiasts Helped Spark the PC Revolution

Casting the Net: From ARPANET to INTERNET and Beyond

Fools Rush In: Steve Case, Jerry Levin, and the Unmaking of AOL Time Warner

The HP Way: How Bill Hewlett and I Built Our Company

Fire in the Valley: The Making of The Personal Computer

Bell Labs: Life in the Crown Jewel
The Posterous API
The problem with EC2 nodes is that they don't have graphic cards, so no GPU-accelerated rendering. Which could be ok, depending on which software renderer package you use.
YouTube is dropping IE6 support, and digg may follow suit:
http://www.techcrunch.com/2009/07/14/youtube-will-be-next-to...
http://www.techcrunch.com/2009/07/10/can-you-digg-it-maybe-n...
Amazon, Why Don’t You Come In Our Houses And Burn Our Books Too?
Author failed to mention Drupal which is silly. Drupal does mashups quite brilliantly.
Bye bye Pocketpedia (another casualty of Amazon's change in TOS)
Instructive that the particular distinction "Cigarettes" was made. It would be amusing to see this poll done either without the distinction.
I agree with the intent of what you said.

But I'd like to point out that the phrase "special interest" is very loaded. If you're going to use the phrase, can you differentiate between a "special interest" versus just a plain old regular interest?

It seems that people use "special interest" to denote interests with which they disagree. Those entities that they agree with are overlooked, despite the fact that all entities manifestly have their own interests.

(I hesitate to cite specific examples for fear of forking out an off-topic thread for an OP that's already marginal)
You missed the absolute best of the genre: The Soul of a New Machine, by Tracy Kidder. It's a single case study, but told in such loving detail as to be Pulitzer-worthy.

Also, there's a lot of good primary source material
in "Programmers At Work", by Susan Lammers.
I've run into this problem with all kind of sites. I would imagine at least one of those sites would of had a good idea in them. More recently, I've made a stock trading website. Whenever, I talk to anyone who was/is a stock trader they love the site and think its a great idea. The problem is how do I get that group of people to the site to begin with.
See also : http://www.techcrunch.com/2009/07/07/amazon-killing-mobile-a...

(excuse TechCrunch link)
No. But it enables a newbie to deal with some legacy code inside his/her box by others. Just like learning latin/greek expands your horizon.
It seems to me that the press is presenting this as Google Chrome OS vs Microsoft Windows 7 etc. When really its a competitor for Windows Azure which is another cloud based platform.

Of course Google isn't doing a very good job setting expectations for it either. I would be selling it as an alternative to Microsoft's cloud computing vision, where developers are required to host there apps in Microsoft's cloud if you want to leverage the Windows Azure's eco system.
there is no magic formula, you have to work hard to get each and every user, slowly building up your userbase. Eventually you'll build up a big enough userbase where word of mouth will drive more and more people to your site.
And then there's the third type, markets with so much competition that there's really no way to distinguish yourself on features, because people think of the product as a commodity, even if it isn't (e.g. Pizza.) that's when you have to start selling on brand and "experience" alone, which is what, I think, a lot of the technical people here are really afraid of: solving a purely social problem with no technological innovation involved.
I don't know how I missed adding Soul of a New Machine. I've read it several times, and it's a wonderful work.

I hadn't heard of "Programmers at Work" yet, but it looks like a great read- I suspect in retrospect that it was the inspiration for the name of Jessica Livingston's book. Thanks.

I've also just found http://www.landsnail.com/apple/ which looks like it has a great set both Apple-specific and general interest material.
If we're already talking about website optimization lets mention the obvious.

http://developer.yahoo.com/performance/rules.html
That limits the allowed solutions to those that are purely software. What about a hardware/software hybrid or hardware-only solution (e.g. PCI Express card with one or more FPGAs)?
It is in the nature of special interests that they will always declare themselves to be acting in the public interest.

I would agree that getting too specific is best left to discussions on another site.
I remember hearing that the widespread use of boxing gloves actually increased injuries and fatalities as you could punch somebody in the head without having to worry about breaking bones in your hands.

Wikipedia has some mention of this:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Boxing_glove#Impact_of_gloves_o...
I still don't buy things Sony makes after their contempt for customers was put on display with the rootkit business.
I don't like the tone here - the article brings up some very legitimate shortcomings in the webOS SDK, shortcomings that will make it difficult for Palm to compete with Apple (and let's face it, that's precisely the showdown we're going to see).

Instead of brushing it off with "well we find it fine to work with" why don't you address the issues directly?
I didn't confront him over his issues, he posted them on the internet.

Once you do that, I'll give you my opinion. I'm as entitled to do that as anyone.
Mobile Unlimited US and International Calling -Tampa Empire
5 Ways to Cheaper, Cleaner Energy At Home
That's really nice actually. I love the highlighting and linkification on the documentation. Not so keen on the white-on-black navigaton aids, but that's just me.
Someone else above said the Kindle edition of 1984 was 99 cents. I'm sure the publisher is well aware of the benefits of having a kindle edition, but got greedy and demanded it be sold at a significantly higher price (or they get a much larger percentage of the gross). When Amazon balked, they took their marbles and went home.
They don't. If you submit a PDF, the scribd system takes a copy and the link to their copy is inserted automatically.

I will never put a link to a PDF again. I submitted a link to someone's work, and scribd has effectively appropriated the traffic for themselves. It smacks of theft.

I contacted scribd to say that the author had not authorised them to take a copy and asking that they remove it, but they are aggressive in their defence of their actions. They require legal statements from the owners, and even then I'm not convinced.

Only submit a PDF if you're happy to have it copied without permission.
That reminds me of the video where Richard Feynman talks about light. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6b6DpT2YLI4.
what do people think of the foxit's ebook reader entry?
http://www.foxitsoftware.com/ebook/
never got tweetmeme.
This is so ridiculous and sad. How could they even take away what we have already purchased. Customers should have been notified at the least. Whatever Amazon did was wrong and how would I trust Amazon anymore?. And it doesn't even matter what kind of book it was. So what do we really own when we buy digital books?
The Calorie delusion: why food labels are wrong
That's actually an interesting idea. Wouldn't it be a good experiment (and a nice comeuppance if it pans out) to see the unshackled media beat the pants off a stagnating Mickey?
There are many 9P implementations (most of which run on *nix systems): http://9p.cat-v.org/implementations

I think somebody was working on one in lua, but I don't know if they finished it.

If you write a Lua implementation or a lua wrapper for an existing C implementation let me know.
Disclaimer: I'm not a lawyer, and am not providing legal advice. I am, however, closely related to a partner at a CPA firm who deals with this sort of fall-out all the time.

The lack of documentation is hugely problematic, and will only be settled by negotiation or court.

In this case your equity stake in the company is going to be parsed by the court according to your initial contribution to the company (not total contribution, INITIAL contribution)... particularly money. They're going to try and figure out who put money in and when. They'll use that to arrive at an equity figure and current valuation. This is a really expensive forensic process, so.. uhm.. be prepared.

There are some pretty interesting tax implications here as well. In some cases the court will grant additional equity to a founder based on some metric for amount of work, or expectation of the role at founding. This can have some interesting tax implications, as the IRS will view that additional equity as income (and thus the starting capital for the company becomes a huge deal).

That's just the tip of the iceberg here, sadly. I've seen this go in a variety of directions based on verbal agreements, agreements with folks outside of the company, and the general mood of the litigators working through this.

One thing you SHOULD talk to a lawyer about is how long you have to make the claim. Often folks will just sit on the sidelines and wait to see if the company goes anywhere. Once it does, they THEN move after their 'rightful' equity as there is some actual cash to be had. Spending thousands (if not hundreds of thousands) of dollards on a lawsuit for a company that will likely never make a dime doesn't seem very smart.
When you buy a DRM product you are buying the right to use a product, not the product itself...
In praise of Hawala
Here are some reasons for you:

http://www.indeed.com/jobtrends?q=perl%2C+python%2C+ruby&...

Python and Ruby aren't nearly as popular as Perl. CPAN, Perl's repository of libraries, is gigantic, having most everything you can think of already in it; which makes writing new programs much, much easier.

As much as Ruby and Python fanboys love to beat up on Perl, their favorite languages have their uglyness and their own faults (which you'll rarely hear them mention). However, their propaganda really has worked on a lot of people that really don't know any better. So my impression is that a lot of the newer stuff is being written for Ruby and Python. So it would probably pay to learn them for that, if nothing else. But I would definitely think twice before choosing them instead of Perl.
I have a general question about this.

Say, a company releases an API which is used by a lot of other developers to make third party apps based on a TOS. An year down the line, the company decides to change the TOS such that all the apps become illegal, is their a legal recourse for the third party developers which can help them to be still able to sell their apps, of course legally?
Oh, they're calories out alright, just not "out via being burned and doing work". Out another way.

(Though I think this effect is dominated by the manipulation of the satiety set point by other mechanisms, which the naive (in the math sense) calorie-in-calorie-out rhetoric ignores.)
Don’t offer $50 for your favorite feature
Fascinating.

On a side note: if that happened to me I suspect I'd be ruined financially. Even though I have an insurance: they would have decided to pay for only one or two of those MRI scans and angiograms, because they'd think that should have been enough for a doctor to figure it out.

I have a couple of friends involved in cardiology and I suspect those are pretty accurate predictions.