skysight-inc/HackerNews huggingface dataset:
Patent issues are not vital for most startups but, when they are, need to be handled properly.

Most startups that need patents will file provisional patent applications, which can be done pretty cheaply and which stake out the claims while kicking the can down the road on the real work (and expense).

I've never seen a startup put everything on hold for patents in the manner you are alluding to, and that sounds intuitively wrong - you should arrange an initial meeting with a good patent lawyer to assess this issue (usually this is enough to make good preliminary judgments on this issue and it is not expensive).
> you can't insult the royals

?? living in the UK I have yet ot be lynched for calling the royal family pompous.. well.. ;)

Also I think there is some confusion here on the difference between the statments:

"It is my belief that...."
and
"It is a fact that...."

One is covered in free speech, one is (rightly) restricted by all sorts of law (for example defamation when applicable to statements about people). Think about it - if we had the inherent right to tell people our ideas were fact when this is not established

Your free to think what you want, and tell people that's what you think. But presenting beliefs as fact is a big no no. Right? :)

(holocaust denial being illegal is, I agree, somewhat of an extreme case and I dont agree with it so much)
Does reading Time Magazine make you dumb? (re: exercise and weight loss)
Indeed. For many people on the left, intellectualism is an exclusive club, whose members must be the kind of folks described in Stuff White People Like. It must be fairly embarrassing that Republicans are still having internal debates on what their party really means, what the government's role should be in a crisis, how to come up with a compromise between socialized medicine and a generally capitalist economy -- while the left has become far more boring and monolithic. Meanwhile, the extreme libertarian right and the extreme authoritarian right has seen a resurgence online, while your typical extreme liberal sounds like his ideas are decades old (because they are).
Precisely: we'll hold the pilot of the autonomous drone responsible.

Edit: Actually, this raises a question in my mind. Do autonomous military robots have "handlers" or the like?
Bigger Tweets than Twitter
Woofer = Twitter * 10;
Very interesting read.

Let's say I know next to nothing about Clojure, Lisp, functional programming, etc.

Could anyone suggest some resources for a beginner on this topic who is interesting in learning more about functional programming? Some tutorials perhaps?
Just read the Audion vs SoundJam (which became iTunes) story posted elsewhere on HN. It seems quite aposit. Audion created a new skinning method, SoundJam copied that method allowing Audion skins to be used with SoundJam. Some other company than Panic would have added DRM to prevent the use of the skins in anything but Audion.

Is there any way you can be more specific about the products? An IP Lawyer is going to cost you - they will find stuff that you can protect but this is not necessarily going to be the best way forward. Lawyers tend to see legal solutions. YMMV.

edit:Typo
Yes. I'm merely expressing my surprise that the definition is, in fact, a physical object, and not at this point expressed in terms of other, discreetly measurable quantities.
Multics: carefully engineered, fail.

Unix: small and hacked together, success.

Plan 9: carefully engineered, fail.

I'm not sure what the lesson is here... there's that "worse is better" essay... maybe it's that when great engineers let their hair down, they do much better?
I'm ended up on http://members.tripod.com/soccer_riot/ which seems to be some early stuff from _why..

From "Collected by Why the Lucky Stiff", http://members.tripod.com/soccer_riot/famous.htm
So a streak that has always been there in the American right's world-view – to deny reality

It actually depresses me...the degree to which leftism behaves as a Christian-style religion. It is all about penance--whether you are dealing with environmentalism, multiculturalism, economic progressivism, everything the left believes involves some form of required self-flagellation.

They focus on silly exceptions like Sarah Palin while ignoring their own lunatic adherence to dogma.

the Republican Party really is spinning off into a bizarre cult who believe Barack Obama is a baby-killer

Disgustingly irresponsible "journalism".
nice read there. would make sense to post this link here too:
http://philosecurity.org/2009/01/12/interview-with-an-adware...
Microsoft’s Windows Mobile Strategy: Too Much, Too Late?
Henry Blodget: How We're Doing Versus 1929, 1974, and 2002
This is good news, the resolutions don't need to be higher (or even as high as they already are) for any output device -- monitor or printer -- that any consumer will have. But it seems to me like Canon's ceasefire isn't unilateral. I get the idea that other manufacturers aren't clawing for pixels either.

IMHO, what camera manufacturers need to focus on instead (pun intended) is eliminating noise. Improving the dynamic range would be nice too, but probably requires much more development of the sensors.
They can argue they're a common carrier, sure, but I don't think that's going to fend off the police from seizing their servers and it might not get them through court either.
Do You Morph Into A Different Programmer?
After a bit of a search around I understand this all much better. Not to mention have a sudden thirst to get involved with that kind of organisation.

I guess I will just release my little plans on HN and enjoy the feedback! Would love suggestions for other places to use my creativity for something worthwhile (for me or a community).
The lesson to be learned is, surely, the same one as we should have learned from the web: creating small pieces, loosely coupled is the best way to build large systems. Ecosystems, not clocks.
Summary: author bemoans that the notion of "top web designers" in a magazine appears to be based on a measurement of fame, and offers an alternative measurement based on the impressiveness of their client list.

Not mentioned: basing it on their designs.
Autonomous tech 'requires debate'
Finally. Let's hope now the more meaningful race for quality high-ISO images will gain momentum.
A Reality Check on Google Size
I've learned this too. Just because someone's well known doesn't mean that they're a good designer or developer. A lot of great people are unknown, even to themselves.
A little more than a collection of small pieces... they need to be able to work together in standard ways.
Las Vegas Bicycle Accident Lawyers
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As a smarter man than myself once said: "Trying to judge digital cameras by their megapixels, is like trying to judge cars based on the maximum speed shown on the speedometer."

Apart from increased noise smaller sensors are a lot less versatile. It's hard to keep the depth-of-field shallow to draw attention to the subject. The smaller the sensor, the deeper the depth of field.
Hopefully this will lead to a better metric for digital cameras... like the: Low-light ISO eQuivelency Rating (LIQR), in which a higher number means it takes better pictures at parties, the pub, etc. :)

In seriousness, this is cool it's about time a digital camera manufacturer realized that I don't want to be a lighting expert when taking snapshots.
I was going to post a pithy comment about this but a commentor on the article already summed it up much better:

This chart says two things...
1) We recover.
2) Or we dont.

odds based on past events that resemble today are 2/3's we recover?
Bad Design in Star Wars
Insightful article.
Absolutely, although of course looking at the web, it's clearly not fatal if those standards aren't properly adhered to by some members of the ecosystem, just very annoying, time-consuming and expensive.
I think money is a background concern, with the foreground being puzzle solving. the fact that you are ultimately being paid for said puzzle solving just adds to your rationalization for staying up. once you get in "the zone" you don't want to leave it, since you know that you are 10 times more productive while in it.
Flickr yanks image of Obama as Joker
Git: A Designer's Perspective
One thing I noticed throughout the week is you have highs and lows but you come to these dinners and get a big motivation boost.

I hear that.

Sunday: Alas. I don't know how I'm going to do that.
Monday: Wow! That complex algorithm works perfectly!
Tuesday: Oh no! In certain cases, it runs way too slow!
Wednesday: I'll just rewrite 2 sections. That'll fix it.
Thursday: No! It's slower than before!
Friday: Here's the original culprit, one line of code!
Saturday: Got it done, but wasted 4 days. Woo hoo! Sigh.

Good thing I have hn to temper those highs and lows.
When A Down Round Isn’t So Bad (Unless you are a VC)
What if you happen to have better standards than Mark Cuban? Let's not rule out the possibility that Cuban's circumstances could be in part due to any number of random variables (i.e. right place, right time) that anybody with a reasonable amount of ability could exploit to become wealthy.
Think Palm and iPhone ‘Spyware’ is Scary? How Android is Spying on you
How is this the world's first? Esquire's version:

http://www.esquire.com/the-side/video/e-ink-cover-video
Wouldn't that be like a CueCat?

http://www.joelonsoftware.com/articles/fog0000000037.html

Though granted, as an iPhone app it would not have the barriers to entry that CueCat faced.
you RoR guys are the sad ones, its all 100% cult of personality.

get real he's only one person, if your community can't survive and thrive w/out him, it should die
dutch example:

http://www.trouw.nl/krantenarchief/2007/07/31/2306950/Boete_...

international situation:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/L%C3%A8se_majest%C3%A9

In the UK such laws are also still in the books.
ITunes 9 to support DVD ripping and Facebook
Get the company to agree a common uniform wage across all workers. Put managers on lower wages that front-liners : my then civil service boss was the first one that showed this idea to me, that you shouldn't necessarily pay managers higher wages than workers.

In a coal mine, say, the guys downstairs at the [actual] coal-face are arguably working harder and at greater risk than the guy in the office that administrates the shift changes, etc..
I was just thinking of Netochka, yesterday, as everyone was talking about how the internet persona and alias _why was an artwork in itself. Despite all of _why's accomplishments and contributions, which are more and greater than Netochka, Netochka will go down as a much greater artist and phenomenom.
"But the tone of this entire thread is suggesting that somebody who wrote a bit of Ruby code is some sort of creative visionary!"

No, people are saying that a remarkably unique artist/hacker is a creative visionary, which he is.

"I'm reading this as a complete outsider"

Outsider to what? Creative work?
Orange Brings LG Watchphone to UK
What the hell is a nerd-Swede tribute film? That's not funny.
Has Whole Foods' CEO Gone Completely Bananas?
Listing his passwords and showing them to be insecure certainly does prove something.
Generate Optimal Value for Your Time
I really miss the days of the animated gif with construction workers
9-11 Commission Final Report
World's best people are unknown too.
Benchmarking Clouds? Let's Come Back Down to Earth
_why Used to Publish a Zine
There's more here (the spam filter quite reasonably rejected it):

http://members.tripod.com/soccer_riot/

Especially relevant:

I often question what I do. I often feel like leaving. And when I go, everyone's going to know I'm gone.

http://web.archive.org/web/20031208133226/soccerriot.com/rea...
"A couple of gripes though. First, when you send pictures or videos to your Posterous blog, it’s impossible to add any kind of text or link from within the app (something I was able to do when I simply e-mailed in photos I took with my iPhone camera using the mail application)."

So what you're saying is, it doesn't do something that you could already do using something else?

I've seen this logic applied to many software projects and while there are many justifications, I don't see the point of duplicating functionality unless it's done in a way that is substantially better or more elegant that the original method. I doubt that the developers at Posterous (who I have great respect for) can justify the resources to write a better tool for assembling multimedia messages than the one Apple provides with the iPhone, the Mail app.

There is certainly room for varying opinions on this, but given Posterous's design philosophy so far, I think duplicating functionality would be non-consistent with the work they have already done.
Kristin Marie Gillette is 21 now. She's on Intelius.
Reading that quote the only adjective at issue is "whoring" the rest are subjective unless the alleged defamer is her Psychiatrist and knows that she is not. Whoring in this context would be unlikely to be meant as actual prostitution instead I'd interpret it (though the courts will doubtless disagree) as meaning "she has multiple partners outside of or alongside long term relationships". This of course is a matter to be determined by facts.

Even if it's shown that in fact she does not sleep around, then there's the question of whether that allegation defames the person in question. For example they may be widely publically assumed to have that lifestyle and so this statement would no more defame her than the allegation of lying (everybody lies).

So does she sleep around, perhaps this should be determined before the breaching the anonymity of her critic. Revealing the critics identity is punishing them before the trial has even taken place to determine if they're guilty.
Thanks. Though I would point out (still gotta translate the dutch example to read it) that "insult" is probably a bit of a generalisation.
We've done a number of internal and client projects. I can name some of the former. We just launched http://RecessApp.com, a SMS paging system iPhone app. We're running http://AntiTow.com, a street-sweeping/towing alert system. We have http://VampireAds.com, an outdoor text-to screen app. There's a list here: http://holmesmobile.com/projects/

Otherwise, we do primarily real-time notifications and mobile marketing.

And you're right about the website. This is the kind of feedback we don't otherwise get, so thanks! I'm also pretty terrible at making blog posts or throwing marketing materials into the ether. Much better when there's something tangible to respond to (which I suppose is analogous to your comment on imaginary "average customers"). But do impugn away if need be, though I'm enlivened by the warm reception so far.
Ask HN: Is it possible to do dead reckoning on the iPhone?
Can I use the accelerometer to figure out how far the iPhone has moved from its original position? I'm mostly interested in the scale of inches and feet. If it's possible, how accurate would it be?
So it's just a quirk of a hacker's mind that puzzle solving (and possibly peer admiration) is addictive? My reasoning being that we all KNOW that it is not good for ones health, but those that can access flow/"the zone" do so to burn bright and die young? I'm also thinking of performers there...

sorry if I'm rambling, but I find this a very interesting topic... not just because I indulge in this, but because it's becoming more and more common and I can only see it as self destructive. What good is a creative outlet that forces you into burnout? Why does the hacker mindset look for ways to cheat around the obviously unsustainable lifestyle? Is it pride? being a perfectionist? simple delusion that the system is geared to reward those that over-invest their energy?

I can see myself falling off a damn rocky road any day now, and it's got me thinking: why was it that I couldn't get to the same place using an easier route? Money? is that it, does it all boil down to simple investment? most hackers aren't backed by anything more than their determination and a vision that simply must be realised .... but that's Obsession!?

/me stops having a mini-breakdown
It didn't seem that long to me. A lot of griping could be prevented if the "Registration" button said something else, like the number of steps left. Perhaps if it said something like...
2 steps left...
1 step left...
All done!
I've always been a fan of Gall's Law:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Galls_law
it's only defamation if it's not true; it's only defaming if it is, which sounds like a truism.

If I claim someone is a drug-addled buffoon, that may be defaming, if that person is Ozzy Osbourne, then his corpus of work speaks directly to that conclusion and only the most highly paid lawyers would bother to argue that description defamed him.
I used to play chess and I still like it. I thought when I had a child I would teach him or her how to play early on.

Then I read "In search of Bobby Fisher" and "the chess artist" and I did a 180; I don't want my kid to become obsessed with chess.
Thank god. Would be aggravating if they were picked up by a squatter.
Your link is broken—it needs an apostrophe after "Gall".
“We need it yesterday”
The Brainf*ck CPU
http://github.com/whymirror/poignantguide/tree/master
"Bute Cardiff", do you have a RL connection to the Marquis of Bute?

Where's the third amigo?
1080p is only 2 megapixels, but even the 10MP cameras aren't producing the same color depth as a quality 1080p video source.
The Math of the Fastest Human Alive
Bing recommends Google
Phace2Phace
Hey paul and ycombinator family I recently learned about you guys from a news program last week since then I have done diligent research to determine if in fact you guys are able to do what you say.Needless to say that you guys are more than capable.I've developed a method of doing business using existing video and audio technology that I already have a patent pending. This method will be used to privately and commercially interface the entertainment industry using existing venues and the recording industry this concept has tentacles that can compliment so many different businesses and walks of life that my knowledge to convey this to you does not come close to helping you understand its vastness so I am prepared to send you guys a copy of the schematics which I am totally confident that my experience in the entertainment industry and your expertise in this field can no doubt be a complete success. I am excited and look forward to hearing from you guys sincerely, Humbling
Cloud Appreciation
I came across this: http://cloudappreciationsociety.org/manifesto/
recently when I was researching elastic clouds.
At first I thought it was just pretty silly, but something intrigued me so I had a look round the rest of the (poorly) designed site, and ended up buying the book. If you enjoy random facts and mildly esoteric stories about something we see almost every day, but often pay little or no attention to, I'd recommend it as a worthwhile read.

I like the way that the guy who started this, sort of 'hacked' something that's completely ubiquitous, by taking a really different look at it, and exploring the subject in a different, off-beat way.

What I found really fascinating, was that until the 19th century, there was no formal naming system for clouds, they were just sort of, there.
"If you go back to the initial spirit of OO, and combine that together with techniques like constructor injection with good citizenship, lots of immutable value objects, and polymorphic strategies, you get a style of OO that is more friendly with FP. It still isn't that delightful in verbose languages like java, but is a lot better than the norm."

Any references for this style of development? Have you written about your development/architecture practices anywhere?
My Canon D30 has 3.25 MP. I have an L lens, and I've blown up photos to 20x30 with no problem.

I really, really hope this signals an end to the pixel arms race.
On the one hand, this is all true. On the other hand, if you're shooting in good lighting conditions, a stupid megapixel count lets you do awesome crops.
I haven't started them, but my girlfriend says they are excellent.
Includes great questions even as the title isn't.
That requirement is implied by the "ecosystem" bit. And it's important to note that the need to work together is not a requirement for careful interoperability design. It just means you need to do simple stuff that's easy to understand.
I may write better code than Mark Cuban, but I doubt that I have better deal making standards than he does. He does this as often as I write programs. By sheer repetition, he must have something to share.

Cuban would be the first to admit that he was in the right place at the right time. But he knew the right thing to do, time and time again. Nothing wrong with trying to learn something from someone with a track record like that.
Wouldn't it be better to register a user, then encourage them to fill in a profile later?
I suspect it's because programming is an intense meritocracy, but a meritocracy governed by the intense subjectiveness of how smart your peers think you are rather than some more objective criterion like published papers or citations.

Therefore, to some programmers, if someone else is likely to do something more brilliant than you, it's motivating to stop them. Especially so, since if you are successful in stopping them, your own perceived merit goes up as the smarter dog in the room.

This game is reinforced by the game of karma on many programmer discussion sites. I have to admit, I succomb, as I want my karma to cross 200 so I can downvote. It's a stupid goal, but my ego is prone to it.

P.S. Please note that science is also prone to this behaviour, and programming and science have the same solution to the problem: actually building a verifiable { experiment / correct theorem / more efficient algorithm }.

cf. Science in Action by Bruno Latour (1987), which I tried to summarize on http://www.usemod.com/cgi-bin/mb.pl?SocialConstructionOfScie...
I had this exact same thought. The quality and size of a companies client list has absolutely no bearing on the quality of their design work.
In a vote, I cant think of any mega-corporation sites which would even get a mention, let alone a prize.
Yet another example of Jobs being a control freak.
So why not add it? http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gall%27s_law
Richard Branson accepting micropitches via Twitter
That doesn't explain why Plan 9 failed, it's really a better version of Unix but it never caught on.
Netochka was not only more dramatic, but thematic. As the original article says, she helped reinforced the cyberspace mythology her audience was interested in. _why reinforced hacker mythology mind you, but cyberspace culture is much bigger.
Suggestions 
I was wondering how the forum might go about recruiting a developer?

I currently live in NYC (moved from w. coast), and have an idea that has attracted the interest of Mobile Network Operators to allow our product to flow through their network. In addition, I am currently raising a friends and family round of capital for a developer to come on board.

Any suggestions?
This one cracked me up
"It's all coming to a head. A sharp, pointy head. With tiny little eyes." http://twitter.com/chrisrhoden/status/1574388823
Is this serious? It's a movie - you know 'make believe'

As technology, yes of course there are loads of flaws, Dr. Who's Darleks must surely be the classic though. As far as movie design and art direction goes, John Barry the Production Designer spawned an entire new genre of sci-fi style.