skysight-inc/HackerNews huggingface dataset:
This thread is about the introduction of the Fire TV, a strategy where Amazon is introducing their own device because the approach you laud, of supporting every device under the sun has FAILED to garner significant market share.

I spoke about profitability and the ecosystem because this shit matters and will affect your assumptions. Case in point: Microsoft and PlaysForSure, which they eventually undermined by pushing their own devices.

Amazon is already blocking Android tablets. Why won't they block future things? Will they support future SmartTVs and devices now that they have their own? Doubtful.
The SDK is a big deal. According to the page, existing Android code should just work. Some tweaking may be necessary to properly support the controller(s) and fitting to a 1080p screen.

I'm looking forward to XBMC or other local streaming software coming to the platform. If that happens, this will literally be the ultimate set top box for me.
Apps are great for things that you need notifications for, or anything that needs to be "always on" for you. I prefer not installing apps unless they meet that criteria, or there is no web version available.
But what about Linux?
"Taking away marriage rights from same-sex couples" should be reworded to "Refusing to grant marriage privileges to same-sex couples"
I said in another comment , but you're thinking candy crush I'm thinking emulators and titles like GTA, Modern Combat, Minecraft, and many other rpg and fps titles.

Most of the games on the play store have controller support. With a ps or xbox controller and apps for mapping if necessary.
I'm also struggling with this problem as my day job has pretty flexible hours and I'm always hacking late into the night after gf goes to bed. Just slept past an important meeting this morning.

Would love to hear some ideas.

On the other hand, I see that we're in the company of great men: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2592725/Memorising-B...
How is this really different from what exists today? You can write in C# for pretty much every MS platform already. If you're smart you're already writing your business logic with as little dependencies as possible on view specific logic so it's more testable, portable, etc.
Since Hacker News has been going through some introspection recently, I just wanted to pontificate on the comments thus far: Almost universally garbage. Just terrible.

There is some sort of bizarre urge for people to rush to explain "Why This Guy Is A Dumb Asshole" for virtually every submission to HN. Where someone talking about a letter they were sent, and opportunities for learning experiences, turns into some profound statement that everyone needs to dispel defensively.
I'd hope they take more influence from the write-up, however. I like that they'll allow Windowed apps, but their current implementation now looks like they crammed together Metro and Windows 7 without any polish. The write-up, however, has a nice cohesive experience. Of course, Microsoft's startup menu is probably early alpha, so it's a moot point.
Should really have a link to the great examples: https://github.com/valderman/haste-compiler/tree/master/exam...
Agreed - the worst are the ones that just tell you to update but don't provide a button to take you to the update option.
You may be right, I may be looking at the past with rose-colored glasses. But still, it feels worse these days. Those formats I mentioned might have been developed by groups, but they were groups made up of companies with expertise, right?

With cloud syncing we have a few open alternatives, you mentioned ownCloud, but there's also git annex, and clearskies (btsync clone).

But those are all community projects. No corporate support. At least in the OpenDocument days you had Sun as the corporate owners.

Why does DropBox not feel some responsibility to step in here, as the industry leader? This is a company that was launched on HackerNews. You are like us, why does this not bother you?
They bought two typewriters, one of which they did not register with the police...

Evil regimes hate anonymous communication.

My father was sentenced to 11 years at the harshest prison of all, Aiud, for "fraudulent crossing of the border, punishable with art. 267 of the penal code".

Evil regimes love to make it a crime to try to leave the living hell they have created. And look how official-sounding the law is. People who uncritically accept the government's position will think, "Well, the man did something fraudulent, after all... surely he deserves some punishment."
You could say the same for a 4.3 inch phone vs. a 10 inch 2.5k, and, soon, 12 inch 4k Android tablet. And if you want radically different capabilities, phones have SIMs that are assumed to be single-owner while most Android tablets are multi-user. Processors range from 800Mhz single-processor with mediocre bus performance, to quad-core 2.3 Ghz. There really isn't any interactive software you wouldn't run on a mobile device, and if you grok Fragment on Android, you can write for any device geometry from a single code-base.

The true boundary between mobile and desktop computing is numeric computation. You don't want to mine bitcoin or your stock market rocket science on a mobile device, mainly due to burning through the battery in a trice.

It never made sense for things called Windows not to have a unified pool of apps. This is a significant improvement.
Metro should have been device-aware (and still, toggleable) from the very beginning.

You can't impose a touch interface on desktop devices any more than you can impose a desktop interface on touch devices. Microsoft tried that, too, with Windows CE. It didn't work so well.
Can universal Windows apps close Microsoft's app gap?
Mono! Lots of ASP.Net projects (like Nancyfx or SignalR) are actually built on Mono. I think there's some hope that web dev on Windows isn't dead.
> Trying to oust Brendan Eich out of his professional position because you don't like his personal opinions is SJW-style bigotry and harassment.

You've confused me with someone else. I haven't called for him to step down or for Mozilla to fire him.
If you accept the premise that you can just buy votes with money, then it's not even stupid. Soda machine is not stupid for reliably giving your soda for your money - it's just a mindless robot. If people are mindless robots, there's no point in voting anyway. If people can be convinced to take decisions which you wouldn't like - that's life for you. Money or no money, that's always going to happen. People take bad decisions all the time, and money has nothing to do with it.
Good news, but why did it take so long for MS to grok this?

So far every single piece of news since Ballmer's abdication has shown clue.
have you ever tried playing regular games with virtual controls and buttons on a touch screen. Your fingers slide all over the place. For most titles it borders on unusable. The amount of touch focused titles are actually small in comparison.
I have been waiting for some time for the crowdfunding campaign.

The FreeScale i.MX6 platform is very versatile. Up to quad core 1.2GHz, SATA, PCIe, Gigabit Ethernet (limited to 480Mbps) and lots of good documentation and driver support.

The only issue is the graphics blob and... in this case the price tag. I hoped I could afford it, but it looks like I can't.

Still, there are lots of other community boards based on the i.MX6 SoC. If you don't need the laptop version or an FPGA, there are much cheaper boards out there.

The Novena Open Laptop really is good work. I hope it'll get funded!
This is they type of desk that I have and I saved a significant amount of money by just buying the legs and then getting a table top at Ikea. Most of this re-sellers are capturing their margins by having overpriced desktops included in the purchase.

This desk also has a cross bar for support and to conceal an axle which allows the desk to have a single beefy motor. I have found the cross beam to be crucial as I have used the desk off-and-on as part of my treadmill setup and every now and then you want to stabilize yourself holding the desk. Even with the cross beam it can wobble in this scenario.
Amazon Release Amazon Fire TV
I doubt it.

As far as I can tell this is "just" another way of pushing Metro. Excuse me: the interface formerly known as Metro.

"Oh, people complained about us forcing Metro. So let's introduce it more gradually!"
What a day!

Windows 8.1 - Mouse and Keyboard Friendly, and Start Button returns:
http://techwatching.com/page/mouse-and-keyboard-friendly-win...

Windows is Free on devices with less than 9 inch screens:
http://techwatching.com/page/microsoft-making-windows-free-o...

Universal apps - develop once for phone, tablet, pc, xbox:
http://techwatching.com/page/microsoft-unveils-universal-win...

Windows Phone 8.1 w/ Cortana:
http://techwatching.com/page/microsoft-demonstrates-windows-...

Touchscreen Office relaunch:
http://techwatching.com/page/microsoft-unveils-redesigned-of...
Really like this idea, great job!
I have the same problem with Agda and Idris. ;-)
Some solutions aren't worth committing to memory. Do I really need to remember all the flags on scp just to write a quick bash script when someone has already posted the correct incantation on StackOverflow?
It's worse than redundant, it gets in the way.

I upgraded to 8.1 from Win7 last week. My first experience trying to compare a PDF document with text file in another editor was quite unpleasant (Metro essentially makes apps modal, which is nuts).
Just another Roku, Google TV, Apple TV
GitHub was not involved in removing the repository.
You could take this a step further: am I really a developer or just a good API caller?
How the NCAA Basketball Tourney is just like Building Startups...
To an extent. You should still know the performance details. As an example, a project a colleague was working on was generating Excel files as a report format. He didn't need to know why the library couldn't handle anything over a (forgot the exact number) 32MB, but he needed to know that detail. It failed to execute on some data files as a result, something that could have been checked and worked around (temporary fix: multiple Excel files; permanent fix: better report format).
Given enough time I could always come up with an answer to my programming problems. Quickly finding a peer-reviewed answer on StackOverflow seems like a much better option to me.

It all depends on your goals though, I guess.
You are of course right in that human rights issues are special. But there are also other human rights issues for which this could be done. The death penalty comes to mind.

Sure, and I wouldn't be surprised if there was a similar backlash had him donated to the campaign against Proposition 34. But how is that an argument against the current issue?

Also, Mozilla is a worlwide organization. Why does this become so important now, when the US has changed opinions on homosexuality? In some parts of the world, gay marriage has been accepted by the mainstream for years now and there are other parts of the world where it will not be acceptable for a very long time.

Because it was now that Mozilla elected a CEO who donated to a campaign against gay marriage? I don't get your point.
I don't think so, it's all mental and non-physical. That's the point.
This could be an interesting debate. On the one hand, I can see similar problems arising from either copy/paste of unknown (to you) code or using an unknown (to you) library or framework. In both cases, there is black magic (again, to you) that could go wrong and you just won't know how to deal with it.

On the other hand, there's a difference in the level of abstraction between copy/paste of code and calls to a library or framework. The question is, will you recognize the difference between a bug in your code, a bug in the copied code, and a bug in the framework code?

To solve code problems, you need to be able to identify where the problem actually lies ...
I don't agree that the second example is more readable than the first
While it's good to know something about how all the component works, most of us spend most of our time at a particular level of abstraction, and don't worry about the details of the framework->language implementation->compiler->hardware instruction set->silicon pathways all the time.

If you understand your code at your current level of abstraction, you're probably doing OK. If you don't, you're definitely in trouble.
Well, there's some scientific basis for it...
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Circadian_rhythm_sleep_disorder

I know I'm kinda in the same boat... my natural "bed-time" is 5a or 6a, but I'm forced to compromise and go to bed by 3a or 4a in order to get up functioning at 7a.

If there's no reason to stick to a "normal" schedule, do what feels natural for you; that's the healthiest thing to do, in general; listen to your body.
Imagine how much value/productivity would be lost if stackoverflow was erased from existence.

I saw somewhere that you can get all of wikipedia on a 128GB SD card? Would be cool if you could get the same for all of stackoverflow. Would make a neat gift and might serve some practical purposes if you were working offline.
Good points, but it is also worth considering that in 2005, Microsoft had a much stronger position in the Smartphone/handheld market with Pocket PC/Windows Mobile. Even looking at how they named their mobile os makes you think they should have been thinking about cross platform apps. Those phones felt a lot like tiny PCs, which was also their weakness.
It's okay I was cranky when I responded, also I meant not everyone is a professional recruiter in my comment.
Sounds like you have a healthy ambition, which is uncommon, especially for a teenager.

You have two options: find the job, or create the job yourself.

In order to find this job, you need to first find someone who is open-minded enough to let you learn by doing on the job. They would likely expect to see projects that you have done to decide if you can do what you say you can. It can be relatively hard to find someone at an established company to give you such an opportunity without a university education. Most people follow an established route - they are not trailblazers. Therefore your challenge would be to convince someone to see things the way you do.

If you have a vision of how things ought to be, you need to avoid the first option. This will help you learn/grow fast. Otherwise you would be wasting lots of precious time and be held back from the expectations of others.

The second option is to create your own job. You can either start your company, or join an early stage company. Either case would still require you do be able to demonstration that you are capable of taking action. Your chances of getting this opportunity is much higher in the startup world.

There are pros and cons to both options. You just have to decide what you value most: learning or comfort.

Embrace making mistakes. Learn as much from others as possible, but know that the fastest way to learn is to do, and to do, you will make mistakes. Mistakes are the requisite to experience. It is a healthy and unavoidable part of life. The journey is yours alone and no one can do it for you.
Connecting those two stories is a real stretch. Sorry.
The idea of a centralized "app store" was not new. People had been complaining about Windows not having Linux-like package management since the 90s.

Similarly, the idea of web apps taking over everything was not new. Microsoft was acutely aware of that, since that was Netscape's big idea (also Java was in theory the same threat - write once, run anywhere, make Windows unimportant). Again, all in the 90s. This is the most fundamental answer as to why MS didn't do this stuff before. Not because of a lack of foresight, but because their foresight was good enough to allow them to identify it as a threat to their monopoly.

Touch screen phones/tablets I agree were less obvious predictions, but even if MS did figure that out early on, it wouldn't have changed their motivation to fight back against Netscape and Java and similar technologies.

But now the tables have turned...
Yep. Obtaining a dev account isn't terribly difficult (you can get one for free if you use MS's "App Studio" program) and dev unlocking your phone directly follows from that, but it's definitely not a perfect solution.
To the people saying they haven't had a problem with it: Have you ever tried to play an action game via mirroring on Apple TV? The lag is short enough that it might be acceptable for turn based games, but playing, e.g. Real Racing (which I have) is a terrible experience.

This is an AirPlay issue, right? For example, when I go to pause a song that is being AirPlayed to my Airport Express, there is a noticable delay before the song stops playing.
The Verge thinks this will be part of Windows 9 instead: http://www.theverge.com/2014/4/2/5574830/windows-9-start-men...
Indeed, this routine depends on you reading up on the problems you're tackling ahead of time, outside of the development/debugging cycle. This is no different to 15 years ago when you'd look in a book rather than a search engine.
Writing Room: winning back content writers' confidence
Tut tut, brightscript ;)

I looked into writing for Roku, cracked open some docs, and that was the end of that.
I tried Keepass2 with mono on Linux and it's pretty slow and unnatural UX experience. Much like running Wine. On OSX Keepass2 mono just froze constantly and looked weird. I've had similar experience with other cross-platform apps.

Total cross-platform is a pipe dream. Just like Java or more recently HTML5/JS cross-platform mobile apps, they are almost always a half-baked solution compared to proper native OS apps. The UX and performance will never be consistent enough to make it better than just investing in native development (Note I'm talking about software, not simple content consumption apps where HTML5 in browser is fine).

Having primary operating system -> tablet -> phone is a good enough goal. They should focus 100% and make it as stable ass possible.
That's the endgame for this entire witch hunt against him.
It's always nice to see UI/UX people respond to user input and admit when they are wrong, rather than berate their users for not understanding the product. This sort of humbleness seems to be becoming increasingly rare.

In the past Microsoft has done well for themselves by listening to their business users and prioritizing their concerns about backwards compatibility. I hope this revert represents a natural continuation of that policy.
For important events, I'd recommend putting your alarm across the room, so you have to actually get up out of bed to turn it off.

If you wake up hours later, stretched out on your bedroom floor, come back here, and we'll try something else. =)
Honestly... fuck this fascist persecution.
Please guys, Use AlternativeChatAppNoneofThePeopleIKnowAreOn.

The real problem with all of these oh-so-secure-much-better-alternative-chat-apps is that nobody uses them. What's a communication network when there are no communicators? Just a network.

Unless X or Y gets better traction than WhatsApp, you will just be "that guy" who refuses to use WhatsApp and is instead on some novelty app nobody else uses. Though tinfoil insults are passé, they will bring them back just for you.
Exactly this. Listing things you've done as a hobby that you aren't comfortable saying you can work with is a bonus. It shows you are committed to being a passionate developer, which is of course a very very good thing.
If I remember correctly they did mention the Offline part when they first revealed about Cortana. I think their plan is to do offline language processing with possible online cross checks where cellular internet service is either terrible or nonexistent. So in parts of Asia where cellular internet is slow, it wouldn't appear laggy.
I'm not sure how it differed from opening up any manual to anything. The reason you are opening up the manual is the key point.
I think for me its was a progression from 'how' -> 'when' -> 'why' -> 'is there a better way'.

I'll frequently go days without Googling anything, weeks if its just CRUD work. When I started it was very different, I can remember writing entire database layers via copy and paste with no idea what anything did I just knew it worked and thats all I needed.

But I'm at a point now I smell bad code in my own work and want to get rid of it and I only got there because I did google... I did go to blogs... read the responses... reference pages/critiques... read white papers/specs/manuals.

And above all I wasn't intellectually lazy, I put in that little bit of effort to ask why, and then get it verify. Nothing wrong with reading source material, theres only problems if you fail to understand and retain what you are reading.
I'm sending this link to Lynn Langit
This is definitely better. One subtle thing that it takes into account that's different from the Microsoft screenshot is that the current Microsoft version has two shortcuts for the Start Menu - the pinned start items separated by a line and the live tiles.

Jay put the live tiles where the items are currently separated by the line to make that cohesive experience. I really hope they move forward with that design for the next update.
Really Effective videos about child abuse and neglect
>In practice, I think many developers just choose a fixed with, e.g. 960px, and leave it at that

Yes, but they were wrong to do that then, and the world is better off now that mobile devices are forcing those people to do things less badly.
I would say yes, because the effort required understand a copypasted snippet is less than the effort required to understand a library/framework/whatever.
Is this jumping and skipping like hell for anyone else?

chrome and IE.
Dobie-mala-celtniecibas-bloki
Ryan Park on AWS Cost Optimization using Spot Instances at Pinterest
As a developer new to Erlang, this is my life now. Google has been my Joe Armstrong book and the manual pages as howtos and fixes are scarce on the internet relative to, say, Ruby. If I had deadlines, I would be toast. But it feels nice to work a bit harder and think through things more -- now that this is my new reality. It's neat!
And what will you do with the other 128 hours?
Suspicious Minds – Why No One Trusts People In Authority
This reminds me of phones before the iPhone. Yeah, "better" UI, bigger keyboards, more color, .1 more megapixel camera... Iterative stuff.

Someone or some company is going to have to completely shatter our imaginations of this market. Until then, good luck getting any massive success.
A Lot of Top Journalists Don't Look at Traffic Numbers
Exciting! This is getting progressively closer to an ideal I call PAO (Personal Application Omnipresence [1]), wherein I use a single set of applications on all my devices. I am very happy to see progress in this direction, but there is still much more to be done in the future.

[1] http://tiamat.tsotech.com/pao
What are you talking about? "RaisedBy.Us does not take a cut of any donations, but is simply the platform through which employees can donate." -- from TFA

EDIT: Why do you think they would get the write-off and not you?
Not at all to pick a nit, but that still depends on bash or sh (the bang commands).

Does anyone have any experience reports on using ipython as a better shell on top of cmd.exe rather than on top of a *nix shell?