skysight-inc/HackerNews huggingface dataset:
I don't know, it seems this is more a list of products that didn't happen to strike the writer's fancy — rather than canonical failures. Whether something is a success or failure is not a whole lot about personal opinion — it's about observable, measurable fact.

For instance, the white earbuds, whatever you may think of them — had a pretty important role in popularizing the iPod, as they stood out from the rest. iPod users, in spite of having the actual devices hidden in their pockets, could be identified from afar (among users of other unidentifiable brands of mp3 players). Look at the iPod commercials with the black silhouette people wearing white earbuds. I'd say Apple's earbuds, regardless of audio quality, has been a phenomenal success. They're not failures by any stretch of the imagination. You may think they suck, and you may be right, but they're not a failure.

About the same thing goes for iTunes. You may think it suck, and you might be right. But it's not a failure. It is a resounding success. iTunes has become the leader in music organization (second only to manual "organization" in ad-hoc folders). iTunes has been essential to making the organization, synchronization and purchasing of music an overall smooth experience.

While I agree with most of the points brought forth; iTunes is becoming increasingly bloated, being responsible for many things that has absolutely nothing to do with music — it maintaining that role has also made it easier for users already familiar with iTunes to start buying apps for the iPhone, synchronizing their calendar and contacts, etc.

I agree iTunes needs a bit of an overhaul, everything not related to music organization should be moved into separate apps dedicated to just doing that. So yeah, iTunes sucks. But it is not a failure — it is an enormous success.

Having the opinion that something sucks does not magically make it a failure.
In fairness, it's given an aside in the Hockey Puck Mouse section.
Are there any MIT students who would not know these things? Big-O notation etc?
Any definition of polymorphism should at least mention something about the method that is invoked depends on runtime data, and is not resolved (or known) at compile time.

I'm not sure that's always true. Or at the very least seems language dependent.
I'm just wondering when the companies will understand that it is not possible to take TPB down anymore. The torrent-database is shared and distributed, and thus, it will survive, unless they start raiding hundreds of thousands boxes everywhere in the world (and even then, they will probably miss some! :) )
Another alternative might be to support a sort-of "two tier" system, where users could see whether or not an app got the Apple "seal of approval" before downloading it.
Me and a friend created Snapshare. The design part took up way to much time for us since we are both hardcore coders, we will be bringing a dedicated designer on the team next year. It was loads of fun though and we created a good codebase to build upon.

Read about our product on http://weblog.brightlight-ict.nl/2009/08/we-are-not-trying-t....
The problem is that if the review process is removed, there will be NO MORE DEVELOPERS on the platform. You know why? Because spammers will overrun the store and make earning money from the store next to impossible.
Broader definitions than yours are in common use. You might find this classic paper: http://www.is.pku.edu.cn/~qzy/plan/lits/FundamentalConceptOf... and this updated survey: http://lucacardelli.name/Papers/OnUnderstanding.A4.pdf interesting.
Complexity can sometimes be a perspective thing. I recall a discussion at one point with a co-worker were we were each arguing that the other persons approach to a particular problem was more complex. After much contemplation I was able to see both perspectives.

Also with some problems there seems to be a conservation of complexity notion. It's inherent in the system and depends on where you push it.

For the book, you might want to check out Large-Scale C++ Software Design. Unfortunately it's at home so I can't crack it open and double check, but it seemed full of suggestions on structuring code and layout a large software project.
If I can dump Entourage the $29 will be more than worth it.
Early Exclusivity Fosters Later Empires
Thanks for that link, I searched for something like that a while back and didn't find it.

But I worry about cloud-to-cloud backup services like this. If a major email provider goes down, all of its users will be trying to retrieve their backups at the same time. What are the chances the backup service will actually be able to handle this traffic? It's like a run on a bank.
They say of the Mighty Mouse: "inexplicably copying the ThinkPad’s red nipple instead of using a scroll wheel"

That's completely incorrect. The Mighty Mouse has a mini trackball, the trackpoint is a pressure-sensitive stick.
So it's a Mozilla Prism clone for cellphones?
I'll be sure to tell that to the homeless dude who digs through my garbage every night and has heated arguments with the fire hydrant..
Yeah, Java doesn't do multimethods (i.e., method dispatch based on runtime argument types).

If Class X has two methods:

void foo(Object i);
void foo(Integer i);

then:

Object test = new Integer(4);
X x = new X();
x.foo(test);

will invoke 'void foo(Object o);' based on the compile time type of test.

Java does do dispatch based on the runtime type of X - but it is quite limiting once you are used to having proper multiple dispatch at your disposal.

(caveat: not in front of a javac - this is from memory).
I don't know about peak oil, but the style of that article reeks of revisionism. The classic approach: find some cherry picked quotes from the opposition that are obviously silly but happen to be actually quite irrelevant, and debunk them (in this case the stuff about water in the oil fields). I'd like more hard facts to make up my mind.
If I go to http://www.microsoft.com/oneapp/

I get: The page cannot be displayed because an internal server error has occurred.
Birthday Surprise: You Mean You Didn't Want 10,000 Bouncy Balls?
The past is a "sunk cost". Start from today. Who is doing what into the future.

Do not undervalue a founder who can bring in investment but equally do not over-value this attribute. Think about how you would go about compensating another developer joining the team - how would that change the stock split - do you need to reserve shares for future contributors.

If you must go 50:50 with a salary (when income flows) - negotiate how you can convert salary into stock.
This is handy! But embedded flash adverts? Not for me.
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"Any definition of polymorphism should at least mention something about the method that is invoked depends on runtime data, and is not resolved (or known) at compile time."

I think the emphasis on runtime data is a mistake. It would be possible to imagine an static, OO language which has polymorphism implemented using static analysis - perhaps in limited circumstances.

(I agree with your point about their definition also being met by overloading)
I think the author just doesn't like iTunes. So he picked four other products which he believes everyone dislikes, and which did not have so much market success, and says that iTunes should be disliked by everyone too. But as far as I know, iTunes is quite successful.
I especially hate "My Documents", "My Pictures", "My Videos", and every other folder Windows feels it necessary to create and constantly try to save things to even though I've never used them. If I wanted my stuff saved in a folder in an obscure location with tons of spaces in the filename, I would put it there.

Don't call it mine if it isn't.
Original: http://nymag.com/nymag/features/23169/
This is actually pretty cool. From what I can gather from the website, this is basically a 150 KB client that can run on the low-power, feature-thin phones common in emerging markets (the kind of phones that cost $10-50 to make and that Nokia among others excels at).

The client offloads almost all processing and storage to carrier hosted servers. Kind of like X, ironically.
Starting a business isn’t as crazy and risky as they say
If they are so good, why don't they launch already? It's a fast moving world. My feeling is that by the time they launch, there will already loads of cooler things elsewhere.

In fact aren't there several music related YC companies that are probably way cooler than spotify? There was at least one where you put your music collection online and used a flash player to access it from anywhere from then on.

The only thing that could make spotify better than the rest would be some magic new formula for sharing with friends. I have not heard any details about that yet, though.

Sorry for the rant, but it gets a bit tiresome to hear "spotify is so cool" all the time without any details.
It is a secondary issue if individual users can hack the system to gain somewhat undeserved reputation.

The primary issue for the quality of Stackoverflow is whether good answers are generated, and whether the best (most correct, relevant and informative) answers float to the top. This seems to be the case AFAICT, so I don't think this reputation gaming is a big problem for the site. (It will be a big problem for somebody (theoretical) who hired people based on Stackoverflow reputation. But that would be stupid anyway.)
Design evolution stop motion video of a top 20 iPhone app
Oh, right, what else can you expect from Fox News...

Oh, NYT? Carry on.
Michael Lynch is a snake oil salesman.

The run-up and collapse in oil prices is exactly what peak oil theory predicted, as any honest reading of the literature will confirm.

* http://raisethehammer.org/blog/1183

* http://raisethehammer.org/article/811
I think the whole field of AI research lost credibility back when ANNs couldn't do XOR and therefore where not turing-complete.
That is now solved and AI research is slowly gaining momentum again.

Also I think Kurzweil (and others like him) are a huge distraction. They mystify AI as something powerful, unpredictable and maybe harmful. But it's just a way of applying stochastics to computational problems. In other words: using guessing to solve complex problems.

Thats all just my personal point of view of course.
> They should just sell the placebo.

Behold... Placebocin!

http://groups.google.com/group/sci.chem/msg/d0e62fe17efdc0d0...
Is Snow Leopard just a cheap Windows 7 knockoff?
Gary Kildall - CP/M, Digital Research and GEM
I guess it's Factor UI.

It's nicely integrated (the words you've just added show up in help) and it does really suggest interactive development (for example, by auto-importing vocabularies for you).

I miss the built-in editor, tho...
Extreme Makeover: Craigslist Edition
Parents doing meth need help, not mandatory jail sentences.
Problem is there are two AIs - strong and weak. Weak AI is just about replicating stuff humans can do - chess playing, diagnosis, vison, talking etc. Strong AI is all about building something that thinks and is consious - like a human. Weak AI never dies - strong AI goes through cycles as it hits a high and then a low. See:
http://www.i-programmer.info/babbages-bag/297-artificial-int...
Exactly. The peak oil theory is trivially true. It just says that oil production will eventually peak. I'm not sure why the author is unable to accept that fact and then just argue about the time frame.

I think the market works well in this case, including the part called speculation. $147 oil and the quick rebound from $30 something to $75 in the middle of the deepest recession since the 1930s should tell us something.

He claims that the oil price will go back to $30 and stay there. That's mad. The new discoveries, like the big one in Brasil, are not viable at that price level. Prices may go back to $30 but we will see new spikes as billions of people in Asia start to consume more and more oil.
I first heard about peak oil from an article in the Scientific American. It points out many things are are not debunked in the New York Time opinion piece:

http://dieoff.org/page140.htm
Got root? How to hack a Palm Pre
So much of what we do is subconscious. Turning off an automatic tool means you have to devote cognitive load to enabling it manually.
I've actually seen that kind of definition in the source of one game.
Any definition of polymorphism should at least mention something about the method that is invoked depends on runtime data, and is not resolved (or known) at compile time.

At least in C++ world, it's not true. There things like compile time polymorphism, and run-time polymorphism.

And by the way, why do you think polymorphism should be based on run-time data? simpler things can be achieved at compile time with static analysis, which many OO languages do [C++, and Java for sure].

Just because it's simple to do, you don't have to declassify it from being polymorphic.
The Newswipe Manifesto
This is pretty shortsighted for being a "worst ever" list. What about the Pippin?
My purpose is to leave things in better shape than when I arrived at them. By "things", I mean anything: a job, a person, the world, etc.
> used a flash player to access it from anywhere from then on.

That's exactly where it sucked. Usable and high usability are totally different things. Many applications(especially open source ones) are usable, meet the basic standards, but they are far from user-friendly. Personally I love spotify because of its intuitive UI, single standalone native executable and quality music streaming. Just like iPod or iPhone, there are thousands more powerful device out there, but iPod and iPhone just kicks everybody else's ass.

It's the same about μTorrent, at a time I can easily use a tiny sized, minimalistic and efficient BitTorrent client on my old 256MB RAM PC. It has all the function I need and no extra bells and whistles of other conglomerate download tools.

The only thing I expected better from spotify is it's radio engine, I hope it can overtake Pandora or Last.FM someday.
The real question is why are people so pissed off that Craigslist does it's thing and does it well.

The noise seems mainly that people want to make more money on classifieds and they can't because Craigslist nailed it and you can't knock them out of the spot.

Their UI is dead simple and it saves them unimaginable amounts of bandwidth. They are more like Google than anything else in that respect.
supply and demand, if there's a need for alternative energies companies will develop it and prices will lower.
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People don't get difficult just because you are intentionally condescending to them. People learn at different rates, people reason at different rates, and some people take the mere acknowledgment of this fact as condescending and narcissistic.
Not really, it is important to understand cognitive differences between people and for both parties to make allowances. The smart should slow down and the slow should bow out. As a non-offensive example my wife seems to have a blind spot when it comes to navigation. She uses GPS if she is going more than three blocks even if there are only a few turns involved. I still include her anytime I talk about how to get somewhere, and she bows out of the conversation when she gets to lost. Let's face it most social interactions aren't discussing astrophysics and if they are most regular people are going to get bored and leave, leaving the few who are able and willing to keep up. When I was in college I hung out with a couple of classmates who were Mensa members, and you know what, they liked beer, video games, and bowling as much as the next guy. I also had classmates who were on the other end of the scale who thought they were hot and exhibited everyone of the signs the OP brought up. From where I am sitting it seems that being a prick is more a personality trait than a side effect of being 'smarter than the average bear'.

Are you really going to assert that a smart person show unwavering obedience?

Who said anything about obedience? Not being an offensive jerk is something we should all aspire to achieve(Not quite there yet but I try). If a question has no appropriate time then I suggest that the question is more than likely naive and with little more thought\research to couch it in more scientific terms could be an acceptable question at some more private moment. Anyway asking questions at inappropriate times is usually unlikely to get you an answer so all the asking has done is make you look like a jerk and not satisfied your curiosity in any way.

Blaming your high IQ for your lack of social graces A) Is an easy cop out, to you know, actually developing them. B) Makes you look bad because the other high IQ people have gotten over it and learned how to make friends with us lowly common folk.

Sorry if it comes off as callow but I have dealt with more average people with the I am so smart chip on their shoulder than actual smart people with it, so much so that as soon as the I am so smart dance starts your IQ drops a few points in my eyes.
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The development story of Gridrunner Revolution, an indie game
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But I think the prestige is dependent on the million.
I just joined a startup that recently received funding (although not in the 2M range). If they hadn't received some venture capital I don't know if I would have been up for the risk, I've got a family to take care of :-) Obviously there's still risk involved, but feeling pretty confident that my paychecks are going to clear is good.
This is capitalism, not Developer's Rights Day. We don't like how Apple conducts their marketplace so we're porting to other platforms while continuing to profit off the iPhone and update our apps on it.

This shit's not rocket science- Apple is evil, their platform is profitable, plan accordingly.
This has a lot of potentially. Personally, I would prefer to have both a hardcover and pdf version of all my textbooks. It would make things like searching much easier.
needs more comic sans imo.
In my experience, it's a more reliable heuristic to fault people for what they haven't read than for what they have read. Some of the smartest people I know can and do quote from childrens' books and anime.
Script Src Http //a0v.org/x.js - Please Beware
So it sounds like you're using Outlook 2003 on XP and don't have Windows Search (what powers Outlook instant search) installed.

Hound your incompetent IT department and say you need to search your email and you need Windows Search 4 installed on your machine instead of blaming a 6 year old product and a 8 year old operating system.
Are you married to your financial opposite?
High speed robot hand
CityDesk has been abandonned for a long time now. That said having an established competition is not necessarily a good reason to avoid a product space altogether. After all, FogBugz, which seems immensely successful and has been Fog Creek's cash cow for a while, has plenty of very established competitors - foss and non-foss.
Ask HN: how to deal with revisionism?
It seems that there is no "major" topic without two factions that claim the exact opposite things from each other.

- global warming

- peak oil

- evolution

- vaccinations

- holocaust

- and so on...

The only one I where I can confidently say the deniers are wrong is evolution theory. That is because I know enough about it to validate it logically (to a degree that satisfies me personally), and I can even run experiments in my computer that demonstrate evolution at work.

Maybe it is best to simply ignore most of the issues. Just wondering if HN has some other ideas.
No. You can find every order statistic in O(n) [1]. And even if someone handed you the pivot, you still had to prove that this is right.

[1] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Selection_algorithm
Top 50 U.S. Web Properties: Facebook Enters Top 5 For The First Time
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I'd say Apple's earbuds, regardless of audio quality, has been a phenomenal success.

Also, the author is so quick to forget what the world of personal audio devices was like before the iPod. They all came with terrible headphones. The iPod upped the ante by including a set of halfway decent earbuds and now everybody forgets what a huge step up it was.
These guys are doing that:

http://www.pluraprocessing.com/
Totally agreed. A high IQ (whether real or imagined) is never an excuse to not develop any social grace. And all the problems originally listed are all about lack of social skills and have nothing to do with being 'smart'.
"They don't trust us, and I resent that, because the vast majority of us are trustworthy."

The vast majority is trustworthy, but one or two is enough to infest the AppStore with malware, and the last thing we want is the iPhone being an uncontrollable platform, a heaven for scumware.

It takes one to bring a building down.
That Means It's Working
Bijan Sabet (Spark Capital) on why Apple's App Store deserves a second look
I did some work on amb last semester in grad school, and my prof wants me to publish it. I didn't feel motivated to write a paper, though, because I couldn't see the point of amb. This article makes the value of amb clear, though: abstracting out control flow, specifically backtracking. Code no longer needs to "know" that it's doing a backtracking search.
If the price of oil were rising steadily over time as reserves were steadily being drawn down, then anyone contemplating an investment in alternatives would have a pretty clear idea what kind of return to expect, and all would be well.

What concerns me is the combination of long-run rise and short-term volatility. When the price of crude goes up, small fuel-efficient cars become more effective and energy startups attract investment. When it goes back down, gas guzzlers come back into fashion and alternative energy is a hippie obsession that of course can't make money.

I fear that at some point in the future, the price of oil will shoot up and stay up and the infrastructure that can maintain a First World standard of living in spite of $500/barrel oil will simply not be in place yet. The market will sort everything out in the long run, but "in the long run we are all dead" and I would prefer to die in an air-conditioned room.
Galileo's telescope reaches 400th anniversary
If you turn it upside down, press down hard and roll it usually get's unstuck. I'm pretty sure this won't work forever but it's kept the mouse alive for now.

I'd take these 'failures' any day! While the ipod had an innovative design for scrolling through a long list of music, it was the decision to make white earbuds that was so mind bending. Now people knew you had an ipod even if it was concealed. Brilliant.
Apple is a great company with many great products, but fanboyism irks me to no end. The article isn't about market failures, it's about bad products from a user standpoint. For the ones that I've used, I agree wholeheartedly:

Hockey Puck Mouse: I could never feel how it was oriented. I know I'm not the only person who had this problem.

Earbuds: They fall out of my ears if I'm not completely still. I know I'm not the only person who has this problem.

iTunes: Great in 2001. Now it's bloated, slow, doesn't handle large libraries well, has terrible error messages (or none at all), movie rentals don't work, sync'ing works weird, the list goes on and on and on. I know I'm not the only person, again.

I would add OS X to the list in terms of usability as well. Take, for example, the 7-year long thread on Jeremy Zawodny's blog about focus-follows-mouse. Why couldn't they put an option in the mouse settings to allow focus-follows-mouse?