skysight-inc/HackerNews huggingface dataset:
"When the printing press was invented 93% of the population was illiterate."

Assuming Seth Godin meant Gutenberg: Printing press was invented at the time when demand for books was raising and old methods were not sufficient anymore. Gutenberg was in printing business at the time of his invention.

Also, Gutenberg was financially unsuccessful.

"The first guy to own a fax machine, what did he do with it?"

Just a guess: He probably brought multiple of them and used them to fax documents within his own company. That would be useful and I can see market for that.

They were trying to create functional fax machine for years before succeeding, so there must have been something apparently useful about it.
remember there are ways to squeeze performance out of python, projects like cython for example. you can also make a python library in C... I don't know how practical it is though
> "...as the interface is so inferior for getting any "real" work done"

Bullshit. Depends on what "real" is.
In practice, I usually choose a colour scheme based on how important the comments are. There exist plenty which either emphasise or de-emphasise the comments, just choose one that is appropriate for the way your project is commented. And I disagree that all of those comments you removed are useless. They make the code far more readable and remove any ambiguity about what is represented by the variables.

>Why, then, are we psychologically rewarding additions with green, and punishing deletions with red?

I'm sorry, but this is absurd. And with regards to the replacement blue/yellow scheme:

> Perhaps it’s not as pretty, but it’s more usable

It is far less usable. I glance at the red/green and know immediately which is which. I have no idea whether yellow or blue is deletion or insertion at first glance.

This post could have touched on much more, for example: should we really be highlighting keywords, shouldn't we just be emphasising flow control and identifiers? There are many interesting ideas to be explored in this area, such as highlighting rvalues/lvalues in C++, highlighting scope instead of keywords, etc.
> systemd goes out of its way to fix the massive integration failures we've had for decades (and seen as almost unfixable) because Linux is so focused on modularity to a fault.

Windows goes out of the way to fix the massive integration failures we've had for decades (and seen as almost unfixable) because Linux is so focused on modularity to a fault. And yet, Linux users don't clamor for Windows because of this.

> http://islinuxaboutchoice.com/

This is exactly the attitude the author is arguing against. Reaffirming this without justification doesn't make you right. Again, Windows is the operating system for people who don't want choice.

> Feel free to make something better than systemd, document it as extensively as systemd, spend years writing guides to its most compelling features that get people eager to switch, and do as much work as the systemd developers did to help the entire Linux ecosystem adopt it with shockingly few technical problems. There's nothing stopping you; you can even leverage the entire systemd codebase in the process. Fork it and change what you don't like, if you think you can keep up. Good luck; you'll need it.

Honestly, sysvinit and the existing userspace does all I need it to do. The extra benefits systemd offers I can do using existing tools. Need to reliably kill a service? Use the cgroups tools and put the service into its own cgroup, and then kill all processes in the cgroup later. Need tamper-evident logging? Use the rsyslog tools. Need dependency-based boot? insserv has got you covered. Need automatic device-node creation, and the ability to run programs based on device events? udev did this just fine before systemd.

> Refuted so many times that anyone still saying this is either intentionally misleading or utterly uninformed about what they're railing against.

Systemd's components are tightly-coupled. How, pray tell, do I run logind without systemd as PID 1? How, pray tell, do I remove journald? Oh, that's right. I can't. By design. That makes it monolithic.

> It couldn't possibly be that the software is sufficiently compelling that those without religious objections to it are switching to it to take advantage of its useful features.

Or, it could be that people now have to choose between having a desktop environment and NOT having systemd. The tight coupling of systemd to layers above it compels its adoption, arguably more so than its merits.

By contrast, X.org and Xfree86 (an example from the article) were largely interchangeable.

> Keep up or get out of the way, don't shout "wait up" or "no fair".

Have fun running over the cliff to your new Windows-ix :)
> So the systemd developers are saying a billion android devices aren't interesting [...]

Isn't being anti-GPL (and pro-vendor/anti-consumer) primarily Android's and not systemd's issue?

Even considering that Android is a big thing, it's still possibly unwise to get rid of copyleft just to please Google and be accepted into phone vendors' proprietary blobs.
USA has 281 lawyers per 100,000, britain 94, japan 7.

Lawyers will become as powerful in society as you let them become.
For those wondering, here is a popular post on tarsnap from a year ago https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=5767116
I'm not sure I agree with PG here. I see intelligence as an ability to interpolate (usually quickly) whereas wisdom is extrapolation. I think about highly intelligent people who have a deep knowledge base and are able to use that to react to the 95% or the challenges they face, but stumble on the other 5%.
> you often and up building crappy workarounds for shortcomings in the underlying infrastructure.

Which, to be fair, you would often have to build regardless.
JS Seeded Random() Implementation
Redis as a PHP Session Handler – PHP Avenue
The International – Dota 2 Championships
As someone on a team working very hard on cutting-edge techniques to improve web development, I disagree entirely. While I complain more than anyone I know about the underlying infrastructure, it's a salvageable situation.

In fact, because of the lack of standardization on a single toolset or approach (e.g. Cocoa, WPF, etc.), we're in a position to improve well beyond the current SoTA. Some examples:

React.js from IG/FB: One of the first opportunities in the browser to treat rendering as a stateless canvas, freeing us from the complexity of time-management.

ClojureScript[1] - and more importantly, the immutable data structures from ClojureScript, let us simplify our UI programs conceptually. And combining it with React (Om), we can make UI's both fast and simple

Datascript & friends: Bringing entire in-memory databases client-side.

All of these, and the wide-open nature of the web as it exists today, means we're in a position to experiment with radically new ideas and find a much more efficient way of representing our goals. It's a really exciting time to be working on this stuff.

Nevertheless, I upvoted because I do believe we're in a plato's-cave situation with current practices in web-development. There's very little overlap between the desktop and web world, so many of the lessons haven't carried over - how to manage complexity, the important of tooling, etc. But we're making our way, bit by bit (or more recently, leap upon leap)

[1] I'm admittedly biased as I've put considerable amounts of effort into the project, and it's not without its warts. GC pressure can sometimes be very tough, and the tooling needs a lot of work.
That too completely automated ...
Like generate -> submit money via gateway -> print n send to verify -> get sms alert over apis -> etc .....

Basically u submit the money rest taken care .... an app on playstore n iphone will be great ....
Is it really that bad? Did it send the message the response article is criticizing? The author states that she interpreted executive to mean man, secretary or assistant to be female. But this is never explicitly mentioned and it could just as well be the other way around.

I might be wrong, and while Mr. Martin didn't write a stellar article- it contributed almost nothing and could be summed up with, "Beware of becoming too dependent on a framework."- I wonder if it's really so inherently sexist and misogynistic that it merits immediate action such as a takedown and public apology.
To sleep, perchance to control your dreams
Telemann produced such an enormous number of works. I'm still discovering new pieces. Thanks for the links!

I think my absolute favourite Telemann work is the 12 fantasies for solo violin: https://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_detailpage&v=UO... (Spotify link: http://open.spotify.com/album/0XlgfMIccHwIVouK0G0lOF).

Two other favourites: The trumpet concerto in D (TWV 51:D7; https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XKUyeMe-_j4) and the oboe concerto in E minor (TWV 51:e1; https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=i39yf0OHXG8).
And neither are you or the OP. In fact, I'd hazard a guess that you are in actual fact a minority. Before you assert higher mobile sales again, think on how many people use their device for anything more than the very basics; photos, messaging and social networking etc.
No, they're arguing for documentation of intent rather than documentation of what the program does. What the program does is obvious if you have reasonably decent abstractions; what you intend to do is not so obvious.

// Increase the counter by one
counter++;

vs

// Log that a user has viewed the page
counter++;

and in fact all that vs

fn logHasViewed() {
pageViewCounter++;
}

logHasViewed();
if by cost you mean the potential gain minus the potential loss, than you might be right.

However, if you mean cost without factoring the potential gain from failing (and ignoring benefits like "an object in motion tends to stay in motion") than I would have to disagree.

You are much better off taking action on a bad idea than guaranteeing failure by never taking action.
Data Scientist (noun): A statistician who lives in San Francisco.

(only half joking)
I think OpenBSD is working on that this summer.

http://www.openbsdfoundation.org/gsoc2014.html#systemd
you almost had me there, bezos! http://ars.userfriendly.org/cartoons/?id=20030301
That's what we ended up doing. It's expensive per month, but you can roll up multiple sites under a wildcard cert (I think -- I'd have to ask the devops guy who is thankfully dealing with this mess).
The prize pool for the upcoming Dota 2 tournament is now the largest prize pool ever in esports history, which is why I'm submitting it to HN. It's an interesting new phenomenon, because it seems to indicate that esports may finally be taking off.

Valve basically crowdfunded their tournament prize pool. They started out by offering an initial $1.6M prize pool, but gave every dota 2 player the option of buying a "compendium" for $10, and each compendium increases the prize pool by $2.50. That means Valve makes $7.50 per compendium sold.

I just ran the math, and as of right now there have been ($3,365,563 - $1,600,000)/$2.50 = 706,255 compendiums purchased. Since Valve earns $7.50 per compendium, that means they just made $5.3M in a couple days. And they're set to make even more next year, since the Dota 2 playerbase has some nice exponential growth: http://steamgraph.net/index.php?action=graph&appid=570&from=...

I'm not sure there are any articles about this yet, because this news is so new. I wish I had a decent article to submit to HN instead of this link. But this is certainly newsworthy, so it's a matter of time before you start hearing other news sources talking about it.

EDIT: If you're looking to see what a Dota tournament is like, here are two great matches from last year:

Game 1 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OaGSi1YTA-E

Game 3 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ajQuCZx-yx8

The production quality is so good!

EDIT2: Also, Valve made a movie called "Free to Play" which documents what life is like for top-tier Dota players: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UjZYMI1zB9s
I've had 4 ThinkPads - T21, T42, R60, and now a T510 which I bought new in 2010. My plan is to buy a MacBook next time around, because when you look at price for performance, the MBP Retina blasts pretty much everything out of the water - even the T530 - Apples pricing over the last 4 years has come down, and Lenovo has stayed the same.
See also Calico, which is essentially what you describe. I think they have more than 100M.

In my estimation 100M is enough to set up and fund a large-scale research enterprise for 5 years. It's harder to get critical mass if you spread it out longer than that, and it's certainly not enough to establish an endowment for a research institute.

Purely theoretical or software research is cheaper.
Programming like that must be an absolute nightmare. Not only would have to understand the convoluted API scheme, you'd have to research the origins to see if you can legally use it.

Things have gone too far when you start namespacing by license.
The JSON benchmarks are wrong
The fact that we have great web apps shows that things aren't totally broken; that's not really my suggestion. I just think we need to be thinking forwards and planning for future web apps. What we have is not going to do us for the next 5, 10, 20 years :(
Error correction codes and transaction models have existed before computers have, of course the schemes people have settled with before computers were designed to fit within the limits of what people could work with back then, with no computers to do the quick math for them.

People have used a simple form of error detection checksum when copying books manually (like the Bible) thousands of years ago.

Retransmission requests based on error detection like the above have been use over various pre-electronic communication channels, like telegraphs, which is a form of error correction scheme.

Of course anything that requires a modern CPU to compute wouldn't be feasible, but the basics of it, the seed, was.

Transaction protocols can be observed before computers especially in military protocols where "distributed coordination" and consistency of command are crucial for carrying out a military mission. Their channels of communications were slow and unreliable.

I suppose I don't have to also point out same military protocols often required a log where every formal exchange is written down in order, for later review if needed. Here are your modern day database transaction logs.

I can also cite famous examples of encryption schemes going back to the Roman empire, before computers existed, but we all know those.

We assign names to various inventions and we tend to think no one before had any idea like that, but truth is good ideas keep getting "reinvented" over and over, and the only difference is the level of sophistication that computers afford us in combining such concepts and building upon them into more complex schemes.

By the way in ancient Egypt, every person would be registered and written down in a set of books, books would be split and sorted by a hash of their name for easy look up.

Yup. Ancient Egypt had a hash-based index for their database of people (and books are the hashmap buckets).
That sounds interesting, I'll keep that in mind.
> Is there a numeric library (like Scipy/pandas) hooked up to asm.js yet? I can imagine that being faster than Python.

Faster than Python using LAPACK and other native libs?
I wish arq supported tarsnap. That would be amazing.
not everyone wants to end up like brendan eich
About 10 years ago, I took a Computer Science AB AP class my sophomore year in high school. It was all in Java.

Man, that was head-slammingly difficult for an intro course. The prereqs said only a knowledge of Algebra was required. But it took a lot of time to get used to. The only kids who did well were the ones who had already been programming for a couple years.

I didn't even know how to do command-line prompts in windows. I remembered a few things back when I had to use MSDOS to fire up games, but that was about it.

That all being said, I sincerely believe everyone should learn how to program. And I furthermore sincerely believe the public school system should stay as far away as possible from trying to impose a model for a one-size-fits-none way to do so.
i still remember the day in a meeting when someone spoke of my employer having acquired some lic for a product which they designed to modify and i asked if we have a legal team to analyze it , well the director came back shouting another team should take the job!
Wikipedia:Unsolicited redesigns
For what it's worth, I do think that mobile games tend towards the exploitative, that kids should be spending more time playing with other kids and doing physical activity, and a handful of other things.

All that said, there is simply too much complexity wrapped up in the "Games are evil!" sentiment to really do much than call back with the rote "But but but the parental responsibility!".

Why are kids not playing outside--is it because of cookie-cutter suburbs and helicopter parents and the terrorists and kidnappers? Why don't parents have enough time to spend on their kids--is it the long hours at work to support a consumerist and debt-ridden lifestyle? Why is it even important for kids to have access to phones or video games?

These are all interesting questions somewhat fundamental to the issue, and unfortunately they'll never be answered to anyone's satisfaction.
In the US, I used a similar program on Apple IIe computers, running LOGO and moving the turtle. And, similarly, I enjoyed it, while some of my classmates found it boring or difficult.
Hmm, but there could still be a libraries that take care of the common tasks: how to talk to an SSH client, how to get some basic info from the Mirage kernel, etc.
Since these unikernels are so specialized maybe SSH would be overkill, but I wouldn't want each developer to invent their own potentially insecure way of communicating with the unikernels.
What Are App Links?
No. I ignore them or don't even notice them anymore. The only good use case I've seen for them is as asset inventory stickers.
High Technology Innovation: Free Markets or Government Subsidies? (1993)
Bate and $witch
As long as it doesn't use the built-in Windows HTTPS stack (wininet/schannel), it's fine -- modern Chrome and FF will work just fine in this regard.
>Remember the Texas lawyers and juries who have pretty much ruined the US patent system.

Come on that's not fair. Companies shop for the most technically mal-adept cohort to decide their cases, because they strategize that they can hire a more persuasive lawyer. The residents of East Texas didn't design the legal system that surrounds patent disputes. This is a weakness in the law.
Gibson cache server now available as ActiveSupport store
I'll put in my usual -1 rant for medium disabling zoom on tablets
I don't know if the Java implementation has more features that the Golang one, but the Java source is so large compared the Golang one.
At last, some good debate :)

You're right that long-form as a means of communicating complex, impactful ideas won't go away. However, you are assuming that the average audience tends toward the ideal (being on HN for a while certainly influences that assumption).

In my short experience, I found that most people outside HN can easier express their thoughts and ideas on the spot, and will rarely take the time needed to craft a thoughtful long-form missive. This doesn't necessarily mean that their ideas are not worth our time. It does, however, point toward a less than ideal conversation partner and to future communication issues.

Although we'd all love to live in a world where communication is held to the highest standards, we have to adapt to what's available (within reason), even if that brings us down to bullet speak, Top 10 lists and click-bait titles. How else will we find a broader audience for our messages?

Your last point on lasting impact is, however, valid. I can't remember the last time I've re-read a tweet, but I constantly refer to old emails for clarification.
Is it that hard to find people who haven't looked at the Java source code?
Mothers can be horrible monsters, like everyone else. It's not really your call wether this was "needlessly" hostile or simply an outburst against feeling addressed by a simplification that can be very hurtful when you're on the wrong end of it.

Someone said above they like when HN gets emotional; well no, when only positive emotions are allowed that's just being soppy.

So here's to people with a splinter in their paw, may you find peace.

edit: I don't have narcissistic parents, I don't think, I was drawn to this sub because of other people in my life; but it's a very supportive place, one of the parts of reddit that are purely awesome: http://www.reddit.com/r/raisedbynarcissists/ (notice how Mother's Day is quite the issue for a lot of people)
making stuff open source seems much easier than battling for inserting proprietary code. hint hint.
The usual and suggested way is to get it included in the mainline kernel. This reduces the pain a lot.
I wonder if they will also draft specs or ($DEITY forbid) contracts over a Skype call.
DTrace is open source and found in OS X and FreeBSD. DTrace is not proprietary code.
Does net neutrality fix this issue?

If Comcast wants the extra money they're trying to get from Netflix/Level 3/etc, but is politically prohibited from doing so, then can't they still just raise end-user's prices? That would look worse from a Comcast PR perspective, but with no competition—which lets them get away with letting the quality of service degrade—does that really matter?

This (especially in terms of Netflix vs Comcast) seems like a massive distraction from the underlying competition issue. A distraction Comcast is probably happy to have.
A strong mind listens to others who may be smarter than themselves and have more experience and doesn't worry about who the stronger mind is.
This is precisely why Wikipedia switched diffs from red/green to orange/blue.
I'm not sure that patents can be represented in any simpler form. They're a sort of programming language of their own, in that they (in theory) encode precise legal claims. The patent system has a specified "language" for encoding that information. Because the information is inherently complex and nuanced, there may not be a way to encode it more simply than in the "programming language" patents currently use.

To make an analogy, C is hard to read for newcomers. But has anyone designed a simpler, better language for describing direct, low-level manipulation of memory? Is it even possible to describe such operations in a simpler way than in C?

That being said, any given patent isn't necessarily written well. Within the confines of the "patent programming language," one can write well or poorly. So I'm not claiming that individual patents can't be edited for clarity. Rather, I'm claiming that the fundamental way patents are written--which is admittedly intimidating--may not admit of much simplification.

To revisit the above analogy, one can write bad C. One can even write deliberately obfuscated C.
What warning difference? It's hard to find any definitive answers, but the case happened in 1992. Based upon my own recollections, this was the time where every fast-food chain started putting warnings on everything. McDonald's even added warnings to their hot apple pies and other "served hot" foods.

Would Liebeck have acted differently? That's not the objective of the jury in this case, especially considering that McDonald's conceded that their warnings were likely inadequate. To the extent that it is relevant, the jury did find Stella Liebeck 20% at fault for the accident and so the damage award was adjusted accordingly.
A Fantasy Videogame that teaches the Magic of Code
Would it help if, like the previous "Try this search on code, we primed the !bang autocomplete with site searches well represented in the results?