skysight-inc/HackerNews huggingface dataset:
It looks like not many people have experienced the ethereal reaches of grocery store technology embodied by some Super Stop & Shops in New England. You scan your groceries with a handheld unit as you put them in the bags in your cart. All you do at (self) check out is pay.

Vast amount of time saved by not unloading the cart and reloading your bags.

I don't understand how theft isn't a problem since it is easy to even inadvertently forget to scan something as you put it in the cart, but it is a huge improvement in the shopping experience.
I've spent a few years dealing with fuzzy requirement myself. And we tell outselves it hurts noone when a bug happens, but we're being deliberately obtuse in those cases I think. Does it really hurt noone if an online test which comprises a percentage of someones final degree grade, crashes repeatedly while the course tries to take the test? Does it really hurt noone if bad UIs cause people to lose time or money, especially when you add up all that time?

I'm not suffering from an absolutist morality here - I'm pointing out that there are consequences to piss-poor engineering, and it is necessary for engineers to take the viewpoint of those being hurt rather than that of those trying to make money selling the product; because after four hundred years of training engineers, that's the best way we've found of preventing disasters. And the same should be true of developers, because just as civil and mechanical engineering before it, computer and software engineering are increasingly forming an integral part of the infrastructure we live our lives in.
My favorite is the windows automatic restart when left unattended after certain updates. Back in College, I had this program that allowed me to snag released tickets to our basketball team (it was first come first served after release) for lots of friends. I went out and windows updated -- on the biggest game of the year.
The next billion cell phone users
the visualization isn't meant for those who know that.
Please read the article about the myth. The memo is not specially evil. Its decision is based on NHTSA. The company and the government agency are pretty rational. But it just tells us even we are rational, the complexity of the world is much more unpredictable.

Companies and governments should be amoral but rational. otherwise church and state will not be able to separated from each other. To me, moralistic companies/governments do more harm than welfare to humanity.
TORN
May I ask what you want specifically? There are tons of distros out there, one may serve your needs.
Those aren't the YC terms. The YC terms are given to teams after they're invited for an interview.
PDF Version: http://www.gulunap.unina.it/mat_studenti/statistics_at_squar...
OP is missing one critical piece of data: in many stores, there is a much higher probability that a junior cashier is on the express line. The express line tends to have simpler transactions, so it is a more natural training ground. This progression would have cashiers "moving up" to the lines with greater volume and complexity. Ironically, express line cashiers end up being slower.
I came across guides.rubyonrails.org just recently. It's actually very useful. If it was around when I was starting out I would have been there a lot.

As for the microframeworks, I'm with you. I don't build apps in Rails from day 1 anymore, I generally use Sinatra instead and sometimes (for smaller apps) there ends up being no reason to switch to Rails.
It rolls so quickly, I would find it difficult for anyone who doesn't know this to grasp the fact. It took me a second, and I'm awesome at basic mathematics. BTW, diameter here = 1.

Anyone else thought that π(n) was referring to a graph of the density of prime numbers? :P
I wish they had 'airline' style dispatching: one line, and then you go to the first available cashier. Oh well.
No all-caps please.
I agree that RIM should try to hold on to their grip on the enterprise market rather than diversifying resource to start an unpromising war on the consumer turf.

Hence, I believe things like security, reliability, or even a better browser will be more welcome by the business users (and the procurement decision makers!) than will some consumer eye candy like a camera.

I particularly agree with getting into the emerging markets, such as that of China and India, even though the business there might not have a keen interest (let alone purchasing power) in RIM's products at the present. Quoting Charles Geschke (co-founder of Adobe) in Founders at Work -- "shoot where the duck is going to be, not where the duck is".
This is excellent news for Hip Hop Goblin!
No he's not. He invented Free Software, and he wants Free Software to win over the half-assed "open source" movement. Many people think they're the same, but they're not.

He also wrote emacs, gcc, the GNU userspace, etc.

Also:

attempts to fight Tivoization of Linux with the GPLv3 (notice that the Linux kernel is still GPLv2? This isn't an accident.)

You're right, it's not an accident. Linus didn't require contributors to assign copyright to anyone, and hence the only way Linux's license can change is by getting permission from each copyright holder. Since many of Linux's copyright holders are dead, this isn't going to happen. Linux is stuck at GPLv2 forever.
The first and foremost problem with your inflammatory and ill-informed post is, RMS doesn't do "Open Source".

The stated goals and ideals of "Open Source" and "Free Software" are very different.
Sorry. all-caps were taken from the original post. Just pasted it.
I'm well aware of this, hence why I generally used 'Free Software'. However, he's largely responsible for the overall 'open source' movement, which Free Software is a part of.
Anyone interested in global warming should read Solomon's "The Deniers: The World Renowned Scientists Who Stood Up Against Global Warming Hysteria, Political Persecution, and Fraud - And those who are too fearful to do so", http://www.amazon.com/Deniers-Renowned-Scientists-Political-... .

Most interestingly, most of the scientists the author interviewed still believe in global warming; they just believe their own research was twisted or misinterpreted to support it, all the rest they still believe. Because of the media barrage supporting global warming, that is all most people, even scientists who do not actually look for disconfirming claims and evidence, ever see.

Also, Moore's "Climate of Fear" (published by Cato), http://www.amazon.com/Climate-Fear-Shouldnt-Global-Warming/d... , points out that the effects even proponents claim have been getting down graded, to the point where the actually expected global warming is likely to be more beneficial than not.
"Since many of Linux's copyright holders are dead"

can you quote from where you got this information ?
The copyright claim on Linux, although correct, is misleading. 1) Sections of the kernel could be dual-licensed GPLv2/3 or converted to GPLv3 without the entire kernel being moved over, and 2) Linus himself has come out on numerous occasions against the GPLv3, especially the early versions.
Perhaps, but unless he signed an NDA or something it's actually pretty hard for the bank. US copyright law gives an implicit license to the recipient - and data cannot be copyrighted so reformatting would actually make that difficult. All, of course, modulo the bank's success in making it expense enough to get their way without a decisive legal position.
The TC comment on this also worth reading:
http://www.techcrunch.com/2009/09/25/we-hold-twitter-ransom-...
And that means there are tons of improvements to be done and lessons to be learned while you need to make money to support your live and maybe that's why you can exploit those bad products and design better one to kill off them!

You seem to hang up at the concept that it has to be perfect from the first time from your writing.
http://www.gnu.org/philosophy/free-software-for-freedom.html

just as a reference for those who dont know the fsf stance on this matter
No, he explicitly rejects the open source definition of free software.

You only have to google "Stallman Open Source" and read the first three results to see how ill informed your opinion is.

edit: Links

* Why Free software is better than Open Source: http://www.gnu.org/philosophy/free-software-for-freedom.html

* Why “Open Source” misses the point of Free Software: http://www.gnu.org/philosophy/open-source-misses-the-point.html

It does not matter whether you think "Free software" is "Open Source". The originator of the "Free software" term does NOT agree with you. He is quite explicit in stating the philosophical goals of the FS movement. It's not limited to "Open source" at all.
Is it not essentially a Pigovian tax? I assumed (perhaps naively) that that is exactly what it is. What aspects of it make you think differently?

> It's a bid to get people to stop using the single source of energy that has brought about the largest expansion of prosperity ever seen

Maybe, but the intention behind it is irrelevant isn't it? If the benefits outweigh the costs then we should do it. If not, not.

Just because some (or most) of the green movement wants to reduce fossil fuel consumption for agrarian-socialist reasons doesn't automatically make reducing fossil fuel consumption a bad idea, does it?
I like the Windows 98 interface because it is simpler and cleaner than the later windows versions and is easy to use for things of peripheral interest to me, like browsing, than linux is. For most things like this, I want something that just works, without my having to fiddle with it.

I like the early versions of linux, because I am basically just a hobbyist in computers and they are easier to script and even program in without the extra layers of cruft, mostly intended to make it easier to use (as I use Windows). But they don't succeed at being anywhere near as easy to use as Windows.

I used to dual-boot, but the new computer I bought 2 years ago uses SATA hard drive and I haven't been able to get any non-crufty linux to work on it. I can't use Ubuntu on it to browse since I am not buying a separate modem because they were too lazy to include for support Winmodems. So I use it with Windows for browsing and image work, and use older computers for linux.
Too bad AggData only has the US locations — the furthest spot on the planet from a McDonalds would be of no less interest.
Every day you're hustlin'.
and also the term "Global Extreming".
You're ignoring my words entirely. I'm speaking about the 'open source movement' as the general trend toward open source and Free Software. RMS is clearly one of the early figures in the movement. I'm not saying RMS is a figurehead of 'open source', which is why I used the term Free Software in every instance but one.
For some definition of "many" this is surely true.
Found it! http://www.gabrielweinberg.com/startupswiki/Ask_YC_Archive
As do I. Like I said, I was playing devil's advocate. :-)
It's a reasonable assumption given that Linux is almost 20 years old.
or troll first (why you'd want to do that I don't know, but some might)

At least on slashdot, the "troll"s are sometimes, in their own way, funnier than the "funny"s (if only because of not involving overdone /. in-jokes).
AT&T calls Google a hypocrite on Net neutrality
Eh? This is a very content lite and illogical blog post with some random ranting against RMS.

FlameBait.

Digg is calling.
First to Rex, my condolences.

I just wanted to add a suggestion over the reasonable evaluation and the option to buy. In our startup, the company has taken life insurance on both founders and half of the insurance amount almost match a valuation we as founder agree on at the start of each year. This is mostly for the first year(s) where the company is not getting that much revenues.

So what happens if one of us dies is that their family will get half of the life insurance for their equity. The other half is to help the company cope with the fact one of us is gone. This may sound expensive, but in fact for guys in their thirties and in good shape it is quite cheap.
This is going to work wonders. imho, it will atleast 'confuse' people who upvote friends without reading the context, specially for all the 'voters' who upvote 'i love/hate my country' kind of comments.

This feature will be interesting.
Cairngorm: Getting Started – Part 2
"Sustainable Energy - Without the Hot Air" by David JC MacKay
It seems that negative-scored comments still start to gray out, so you'll be able to upvote something you think has been unjustly penalized.

What you won't be able to do is aim things toward a desired positive score, such as downvoting a one-liner joke with 100+ points that you wouldn't downvote if it were at 20 points or less.
regardless of the idea, its just like speed reading. You can get the information into your brain quick enough but it takes time to process and comprehend it. Speed reading denies you that processing capability so you "read" but you don't understand.
The problem is the author defines "progress" in a very different way than RMS does. Is progress number of users or is progress getting the best possible system without sacrificing the core principles of Free Software?

If you are going to throw around the word "traitor", then you are talking about principles. Nobody can say RMS has sacrificed his beliefs at any point.

If you wanted to write a blog post that said "RMS is not the best spokesman/salesperson for free software", I'd believe that. But traitor and a bad seller are two totally different things.
It's not even good advertising for django because the usability is very poor. They don't even have a search function...
And conversely, if I consistently find that the community values comments that I think are junk, I'm probably going to eventually leave the community (which is why I'm here, and not on certain other sites).
I wonder why they chose a wheel with seven spokes. I don't recall ever seeing one with an odd number.
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Well... I don't care if RMS being an extremist.

Because he is the upper bound.

The followers can follow the ideas to an extent they are comfortable with. But still the community stays strong that way.
This is precisely the problem. Without some idea of what earlier readers think of the comments it is much harder to skim.

The top-level comments presumably rise and sink based roughly on their karma (though the algorithm also seems to have other considerations, like momentum). But what of the second-tier comments and below? Ripostes are often where the action is.

I might find that I'm reduced to skimming for names that I recognize. That's how the rest of the web works. The web in general has no karma system, so the way to "upvote" something is to repeat it with your byline: You Twitter it or reblog it (or retweet it, or re-reblog it) with a link and your signature, implying a certain degree of implicit endorsement.

I expect that if this system holds we'll start seeing more "amen" comments. I kind of hope so, frankly: Now the only way I will spot an incredibly insightful but short comment buried downthread is if I see a bunch of comments from people I vaguely know saying "amen".

I'm not sure this trend will represent progress, however.

If we want to tinker, consider this: relative rankings on a page. Find a way to distinguish the top-voted 20% of comments from the second quintile, and the second quintile from everything else. (My instinct is not to bother distinguishing things below the top 40%, and of course negative-karma comments presumably are still doing their disappearing act, my favorite cute HN feature.)

At the risk of repeating the legendary eye-searing Orange Name experiment... we could turn the byline of comments in the top 20% a different color from the second 20%, which in turn is a different color from everything else.

Red is probably the wrong color for any of this -- too loud. Think "green". I'm thinking shades of green: Comments in the first quintile have very green bylines, comments in the second quintile have slightly green bylines, and all the other comments have their usual light grey bylines.
If you don't think the features are worth the price than don't buy the product. Adobe aren't forcing you to upgrade. If enough people don't think the features are worth buying than Adobe will reduce the price.

But frankly CS seems cheap at the price. $500 - that's probably what 5 hours of your time costs to your employer, the amount of time the new CS features will save most professional users means it'll pay for itself within weeks if not days.
Reminds me of http://robin.sourceforge.net/ which was sort of an all-XUL version of this.
I'd be interested in seeing this happening for posts in addition to comments, so that there's more of an incentive to vote based on one's own opinion of the post than to fall for "scorebait" and voting on the heat of the moment because it seems everyone else is doing the same
Although at least in the uk the company would get prosecute for sending client details unencrypted over the internet.
I just switched to last.fm from Pandora. The last straw was the same video ad for 'Mercy hospital' every single time I changed stations.

I have to admit that listening to last.fm is a completely different experience. There are a much deeper selection of tracks and I was thrilled to hear a 24 minute DJ Shadow song.

I wish pandora the best, and I was ok with the occasional video ad. But every time I change a station? If it was every 3rd time I might have put up with it.
Murphy's laws "If there is a possibility of several things going wrong, the one that will cause the most damage will be the one to go wrong"
Yes, but sometimes a person's authority is actually relevant. Consider this short exchange from the other day: http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=841887

On the other hand, when somebody who is deeply respected (be it pg, or any prolific high-karma commenter) posts on something where they have no particular expertise the comment shouldn't get special consideration due to the author.

I can't think of a way to reconcile these, and there's enough people who post here that are actual authorities in relevant areas that I wouldn't want to give up the first. Being able to know that, say, a comment about security was written by tptacek matters more to me than "oh look, pg made a two-word post that got 9001 points".
Like price, comment score is the best indicator of context, class, and quality.

Fuck that. Are you saying that you're too lazy to read what people are saying and form your own opinions? That groupthink is just going to naturally turn out better than forcing every member to think about what they're reading?

For the longest time, HN has become more and more "accessible", at the cost of a lot of intellectual discussion. I've seen a lot of conversations where one side of the argument is downvoted to hell and it makes the other side look "correct". I just saw a thread two days ago where somebody in the debate responded to a guy who was at -4 by saying "Look at your comment score, looks like I'm right." That's shit. That's utter shit and it hurts Hacker News.

I'm fine with spending more time reading a thread if it means I'm legitimately thinking about what people are saying. This is a terrific improvement to the system, and it feels a hell of a lot less claustrophobic than it did when every single thing people said was being judged as if it were an objective statement capable of being "good" and "bad."

Hopefully this also stops people from downvoting statements based on disagreement. Feels less vindictive when you can't see what your vote's done.
You used it at least twice, in particular casting RMS as a 'leader' of the Open Source Movement:

"...open source is bigger than ever ... the last thing we need is a 'leader'..."
I'm actually fine with RMS being intransigent about licensing and code and so on. Where he stepped over the line was attacking Miguel in person. If he wants to be personally nasty to anyone who has anything to do with proprietary software, he's going to end up a very lonely person.
Ask HN: Resources/Books for kernel/driver programming on Windows and OSX
I've invested quite a bit of time into learning about Linux kernel programming over the last few months, and the O'Reilly books Understanding the Linux Kernel and Linux Device Drivers helped immensely. They were useful for getting higher-level feel for the system, as well as going into enough detail so I now usually know where to look or start. They're also great as references during development.

I'm now starting to think about other OSes, mainly Mac OS X and Windows. I know userspace pretty well there, but have zero experience with the respective kernels. Not having the source feels like it will make matters more difficult, so good literature seems critical.

For Mac OS X, I'm aware of the official Apple docs, which seem more useful as a reference than something to start on. The only relevant book I've found is Mac OS X Internals by Amit Singh. Has anyone here read it, and would you recommend it? Are there other good books or websites on the toping that I've missed?

There are quite a few Windows driver programming books, some horrendously out of date. None leap out at me as being obvious choices. There's the DDK documentation of course, but I wouldn't mind a second point of view. Any recommendations?
My apologies, I hadn't intended to use that there, was just writing quickly. I've corrected it to 'Free Software'.
The comments in this discussion are useful to bring this poorly written article up to standard, but even so this story should not be appearing on the front page of HN.
Somehow associate the points with the upvote/downvote icons and not with the username?
Have you met Richard Stallman? Not exactly a people person, anyways :)

To be clear, I have nothing but mad respect for Stallman, even though my personal beliefs differ from his. He can be extreme sometimes, but his firm adherence to his beliefs is important. Calling him a traitor is completely out of line.
If you really want the Windows 98 experience, you can always turn your resolution down to 800x600 (or smaller, if you can) and do:

Right click on My Computer, Click Properties
Select the Advanced Tab
Click Performance
Select "Adjust for best performance".

That sets the most obvious appearance to something akin to Windows 98.

As far as things just "working" I have yet to use a system that is as good in that aspect as Windows 7 (and Vista before that). The problem of things not working doesn't lie in the OS, it's almost entirely for the crap we consider "working" now, that wouldn't have even been thought of now.

As an anecdote, a year or two ago I acquired an old Windows 98 machine, which I played around with for a few hours. After fighting with it to get all of the drivers found. This was a fresh installation, on Windows 98 era hardware, and I ended up having to install a floppy drive into my desktop, find some floppies and go out and download each of the drivers for everything to even get it working. Once I finally had it up and running, I decided I would try and go online. The only site I usually go to, and could get to an even usable state was GMail, through the "Low Bandwidth" version.

The problem isn't with the OS. Its all the crap we try and do on computers, and how shoddily that is put together. If you want to see it for yourself: Go out and get a copy of Windows 7 (Get a 90-day trial: http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/evalcenter/cc442495.aspx) and go install it on a VM. Disable networking, and try and use it like you normally would. Install the minimum applications you need to do your work. You will be amazed at how things "Just Work". Then try and go online for a few days on it, and watch it DIAF.
That implies you trust the community more than you trust your own judgment.

If somebody refutes you elegantly, then you should look into their refutation regardless of whether or not the refutation has many points.