skysight-inc/HackerNews huggingface dataset:
Great work! I'm really looking forward to using cappuccino for my next project, I think it will be a perfect fit.

In the blog post, you mentioned several backend solutions to work with cappucino. Which would you say is most mature, and which would you recommend? Using Objective-J on the backend would certainly be preferable, so that the developer can stay in one context the whole way.

Also, many solutions are going to end up having a model layer in the UI and a model layer on the server that will need to stay in sync. Are you guys working on any solution to automate this?
By a "complex" metric, I didn't mean that the metric is necessarily complex to compute or represent. Rather, the complexity of the metric is a measure of the breadth and complexity of the activities which have an effect on the result.

Take operating profit, for example. It's fairly straightforward to compute (not as simple in practice as one might imagine, though), and it's just one number. Pretty much anything going on in the company has an effect on the bottom line, in one way or another. It's the result of complex activity.

Obviously, this was a poor choice of words. Any suggestions for a better word?
readline is amazing, for bringing consistent shell-like behavior in a variety of programs, including the shell, python, mysql, etc.

You configure it using ~/.inputrc...here are the commands I use:

set completion-ignore-case on

Tab-completion will ignore case if it's not ambiguous...

set show-all-if-ambiguous on

...but if it is ambiguous, this will give you a list if you hit tab again.

Space: magic-space

Magic space is key. When you press space, it will expand out any ! commands you have on the line. If you have none, it's just a normal space. This lets you be much more bold with your use of history commands, as you can see what it expands out to before you run it. Note that this can interfere a little within other environments, such as python.

"\e[A": history-search-backward
"\e[B": history-search-forward

These two set incremental history search. You can type part of the command you know is in your history, and then pressing up or down will cycle through them. E.g., if you're looking for that particular find command you did a few days ago, you can type 'find' and then hit up arrow until you find it.

set editing-mode vi

Finally, not for everyone, but for us vi users, this is awesome. You get a lot of the standard vi functionality on the command line (and anywhere else you use readline, include mysql and python). This means esc + j/k to scroll up or down through history (far faster than arrow keys), using f/F/t/T commands, d/c/a/i ways to enter edit mode, even . and , work as expected, etc.
Please add support for foreign language characters. I tried to make a design using Cyrillic characters but they didn't came out properly.

There could be a market for your service among the many bilingual and emigrant people in USA.
Fortunately, we can fall back on pseudonymity to some extent, as well as lying.

A close friend of mine, throughout over 5 years of college, shared one grocery store "club" card with all roommates and acquaintances, eventually totaling a couple dozen users.

The disincentives by the store to doing this, usually in the form of a bonus paid to the instant user at some predetermined spending level, were ineffective, since the group was one who would gladly pay $1 for a lottery ticket, and this was a bargain by comparison.

Personally, I routinely give bogus ZIP codes for any situation other than where I wish to receive mail.
(in response to the earlier comment that was "when did HN become a forum for politics" prior to edit - though I think this still applies) I'd agree that topics like this clearly straddle the line but they're also of interest to at least some of us - especially given the underlying question of what policies help/hurt us and create wealth? Some politics are unavoidable given their impact on startups.

It's also a pretty interesting factoid especially in the aftermath of the financial crisis that provides a bit of perspective where nearly every country is doing some introspective as to how it happened and when at least the US is about to adopt some policies that you could call European.
The last paragraph is a pretty good summary:

"You need rich people in your society not so much because in spending their money they create jobs, but because of what they have to do to get rich. I'm not talking about the trickle-down effect here. I'm not saying that if you let Henry Ford get rich, he'll hire you as a waiter at his next party. I'm saying that he'll make you a tractor to replace your horse."
What a weird response. It is, to say the least, counterintuitive that, when PPP-adjusted, Mississipeans have greater buying power than Germans. It either suggests that something is wrong with the author's naive methodology of ranking countries, or that something weird is going on in Germany.
Great domain name.

A few ideas:

You should run a contest for the coolest design. Winner gets cash and free print(s). You'll get some really cool designs that way.

The rotate feature should show what degree it's at. I can just see scenarios where this is useful. Two quick ones is if you accidentally rotate something you have to eyeball it back to level or if you like to align multiple words at a slant.

Directional key (up down left right) moving. Select the object and move it with your keys.

I don't know if it's possible but implement an undo. I guess you should evaluate the necessity of this by looking at where you lose users. If you are losing users due to frustration on creating their design at the template page then an undo would help.

Let people export the art. Why not? Allow people to use it for their desktop background, avatar image... etc. It'll only generate interest.
So you can parse the code in those slides -- despite it being raw high performance-focused code -- but you're having trouble understanding why it is fast?
Try raising some questions.
So Snickers is actually subsidizing the sales of the other products with their marketing, it sounds like they should adjust their pricing or add some minimum inventory levels.
Evil Pharma and the Cure for Cancer (sorry, for the linkbait title)
"It is even more an extreme judgment when you are talking about what you think other people should do."

No. You're missing my point. I don't mean "higher" and "lower" in terms of how other people judge them. I mean in terms of how happy they make you.

If you are overweight AND you wish you weren't, you make yourself unhappy when you choose to eat junk and not exercise. For a moment, the junk food tastes good, but then it makes you unhappy all day. (If you don't mind being overweight, fine.)

On the other hand, if you force yourself to get in shape, going running makes you momentarily unhappy, but overall you feel more satisfied with your life.

It's the same reason you go to work when you're tired, clean your house when it's filthy, etc. The reward is worth the pain.

Everyone is welcome to define their own goals in life. If your goal is to be a Level 5 Million WOW player, and you don't mind losing your health for it, fine. But if you kick yourself every day for your habits (whatever they are) and wish you could change (in any way), you've got a priority problem. You should be sacrificing lower desires for higher ones.
Conceptually its the same as a ternary statement with the addition that the output is looped over if the expression evaluates to an array.

Conditional markup is necessary somewhere in the system - this puts it in the templates in more compact form that won't break like the multi-line block in the example.

If you put the markup in the controller then you blur the line in the MVC architecture.
Baseline - a framework built with typographic standards in mind
Add this to your .bashrc to have much more intelligent tab-completion:

case $- in
*i*) [[ -f /etc/bash_completion ]] && . /etc/bash_completion ;;
esac

In addition to the usual filename completions, this will do command-dependent completions. A small sampling:

ssh: tabs complete hostnames in your ~/.ssh/config file

/etc/init.d/*: tabs complete possible options for any script in your init.d directory (at least on debian/ubuntu)

most standard linux commands: type the command and then - and then tabs will show you the list of possible options for that command.

kill/renice/pkill: tabs show you list of process ids/names
It's a loss leader. Remember, the manufacturer is Mars, Inc. They'd prefer you buy the higher margined product too, because most likely they make that as well.
Yeah, maybe. I haven't paid enough attention to know for sure.
I think the low image is mostly self-inflicted. From the inside, it's easy to dismiss programming as just a matter of reading documentation, learning and recognizing patterns, and solving fairly simple puzzles. I'm usually surprised how impressed people are and how respectfully they treat me. Whenever I say, "I'm a programmer," or "I'm a software developer," I'm afraid they're going to think of the smelly schlub in a death metal shirt who keeps screwing up their corporate web site. Or any of the other stereotypes: the novelty-averse autistic man-child, the anxious anal retentive control freak, the meek Milton from Office Space, the WoW addict. All variations on the same theme: a guy who retreated into computers because he lacked the ability to cope with anything else in life, and now hangs onto society by the tenuous thread of his technical skill. But that's not how people see me. They see me as somebody who stays on top of a challenging and constantly-changing field. The more I realize this, the more I am amazed and relieved. I sure have people fooled ;-)

Seriously, one thing that people outside computing really appreciate about our job is how fast things change. For the average person over 35, it feels like everything about their job changed in the last twenty years, even the last ten years, and it will keep changing for another ten years. It's scary and challenging, and sometimes they're afraid they won't keep up. And for the average person, it was all driven by computers, directly or indirectly. So they look at me and realize they're exaggerating; compared to my job, their job has only changed a little bit. But the change doesn't faze me a bit. For the average person under 35, they're thrilled with how fast things are changing, and computer guys are the ones who understand it and make it happen. (We probably get more credit than we should. Scientists and engineers have fallen too far from their "Masters of the Future" position in the public eye; they should be right up there with us.)
Hey all,

I'm one of the authors of the Netflix and social network de-anonymization papers referenced, and the author of http://33bits.org. I also had the pleasure of having many talks with law professor Paul Ohm over the technical aspects of his excellent paper (which another commenter has posted a link to.)

Paul's paper is a great example of people in the law community "getting it." (He happens to have a CS degree and is a hobbyist perl hacker!) We need more people like Paul, and we equally also need tech people who understand law and policy. I encourage everyone to give Paul's paper a quick read, gain awareness of the issues such why the current privacy laws are wrongheaded and what needs to be changed, and be on the look-out for ways to change things (as consumers, as tech influencers, as citizens). Cheers.
New report on iPhone Game sales stats
Yep. http://twitter.com/cyanogen
So true...it's the perfect platform for Mystery's Photo Routine, because it encourages the use of pinch-to-zoom and stipe-to-pan - you're that much closer to kino escalation. ;-)
Palm Pre: Two Months In
Sure, but given the range of the Yike I don't think long-distance hauling is really an option anyways.
I agree, you lose the merging when you work with binaries (for the most part).

But when I was at HP, our little team was behind the curve in tool use, and I was pushing for a comprehensive scm, instead of the patchwork we had. My big selling point was that given a stack of windows and database install disks, and the scm, you should be able to bootstrap the project up, and get it running.

I really like that point of view when it comes to SCMs. It's the official repository of everything project related. You have code, docs, graphics, everything needed. You do lose out on merging and stuff with binaries, but that's a small price to pay for the peace of mind you get.
Assuming we have more Henry Fords than Bernie Madoffs ;)
Well, it kind of depends on your definition of marketing. Certainly the CTS is a new product at the center of Cadillac's new image, but what are new car models other than genius marketing-in-disguise with incremental updates to technology? That's not to poo-poo the CTS, but when you strip off the pretty sheetmetal, it's still 'just' four wheels meant to get you where you're going. From a product stand point it's not so different from a BMW, Acura, Lincoln or Chevy. The difference is the feeling evoked by the sharp lines, aggressive stance, and the seductive model they've got driving it. In other words, marketing.

Maybe that's too broad of a definition for this particular thread, but I think it's a good example of how marketing and sales are truly interwoven in everything we touch. Every product on the shelf is designed in this manner, to make consumers want it, or to convince them they need it.
I see your point: your complexity relates to the system being measured rather than the measurement. But I'm afraid I don't have a single word that could make it clearer.
Seth Godin's Book roundup
Paul Graham: The List of N Things
First time I see that - is there any particular reason why would one use that for applications instead of, for example, GWT?

edit: I am watching screencasts now from http://cappuccinocasts.com (I'm not Ruby guy though - PHP, but doesn't matter) - and I am wondering how the hell are you

1) how to debug/profile this? What, a hunch or traces and alerts?

2) .j files are in plain sight to anyone, not obfuscated

3) Why .j at all in production, why not compile down to javascript?

4) It seems nice from a perspective of a desktop guys viewpoint (here is one!)

5) holy spaghetti code
I don't think I quite understand what misconception people hold which leads them to believe that any environment in which two or more human beings are in social contact could ever be free of politics.
(via. Daring Fireball)

I realize this can potentially spawn all sorts of "that's not my experience" and a point-by point counter-list of why this list may or may not be bullshit... but all the same I find things like this interesting, and I think it's good to discuss longer-term experiences with different devices to counter the "I had to review this device so I used it for a week" columns and "I already hate this device but I'm going to give it a once-over and find more things I hate about it and make a list all while giving a strong look of mixed disapproval and disgust" type posts...
Why don't they just increase their margins on the thing that people actually want?
There are a lot of flaws with Paul's thinking here. First, most money is handed down, and then there's the lucky. Those bright sparks who earned their fortune may be on the covers of magazines, but they represent a paltry portion (1%?) of the total.

Second, the wealthy are very good at keep their wealth for their families, those who are like them, those who went to the same school, etc.

The worse the disparity in income, the worse the economic mobility and the worse society is as a whole. It creates huge problems that are well documented and easy to see if you simply travel.

I understand Paul's point: driving technology creates wealth, and so it should be rewarded. Great. But if you peel off the fads and leave those technologies that really create wealth, you'll find Europe contributes just as well. In Europe, however, you don't trip over the homeless and crazy as you do in San Francisco. I'm an American entrepreneur; I choose to live in Europe.
Trust me, ITA isn't scraping screens to get their data.
Simple metrics or complex metrics won't get you anywhere unless you have the proper context around them. Why should I care about this metric? How did this metric get calculated? What am I supposed to do now?
I love it - I have been looking for exactly this service for a while now. I have a bunch of ideas for these types of items that have never really gotten off the ground due to the overhead.

I opened a store front (http://www.customizedgraphics.com/alexophile) and the main thing I would suggest is having more categories. Work tends to get buried and poorly organized when there's too few categories. The use of tags only obfuscates this slightly, especially if someone doesn't actually know what they're looking for.
Does PPP take into account things that are paid for with taxes (to a greater degree) in the EU and by insurance fees in the US, e.g. healthcare?
2010 could be the last year for IPv4 as we know it
Internet Manifesto: How journalism works today. Seventeen declarations.
Firstly great site and great idea. But you are not (hopefully) posting here to get your butt kissed but for some constructive criticism and ideas, so here goes:

1. The site is a little busy and lacks a real call to action. "Start Designing" kind of disappears

2. I think you need two sites. One for the business market and one for the consumer market. These could both have the same backend etc, but probably need seperate names / front ends. Businesses (generally) don't buy from consumer related sites and vice versa. Your product definitely seems capable of satisfying both markets (and I would use the current domain for the business market)

3. Your focus both on the site and in your comments here seem to be slightly on the ability to design your own product. Personally I am useless at design so this would not appeal, but I also know a number of people who are amazing at design, but not that good with a blank canvas. I've only taken a quick look at your site but I would perhaps focus on the excellent designs you already have and offering customisations to them over actually having a blank canvas (which is where I ended up when I clicked Start Designing).

But overall looks really good, good luck with it.
We'll be announcing some Atlas news soon, we try not to post about it on cappuccino.org since it is a separate commercial product.
It would be nice if the author applied his design and writing skills to something more interesting than destroying as much of the ozone layer as possible in a month (or is there some valuable aspect of his project that I'm missing?).
"paying for a development license"

This is the suckiest part. Paying money (every year!) to develop on a device you paid for is insane. I don't know if any other platform has annual development fees. Damned if I'll pay money every year to be "allowed" to write/deploy code on my own device.
> On the other hand, I've been following OB and LW since they started

...and you didn't pay for it, and we don't run ads. Do you feel that we benefited you, and did more good than harm?
I'm a little embarrassed to admit this, but I've been quietly following you on the net for quite some time. You seem like one of the nicest people I've never met. Can I buy you lunch sometime? :)
It would be interesting to know the percentage of Mars products in machines with Snickers.
Isn't the convention usually to tag these throwback posts with the year in which they were relevant?
I'm not sure if this is more along the lines of what you mean, but this tutorial got written recently which explains specific problems/solutions in building an entire app: http://blog.springenwerk.com/search/label/Cappuccino .

Perhaps an explicit list of when you would and wouldn't want to use Cappuccino is a good idea though
A very interesting read!
Most people don't fully understand how difficult it is to write with your left hand, especially in school.

The first and most obvious problem is created by right-handed desks, forcing us lefties to reach across our bodies to write with no support for our arm. Now, granted, there are usually one or two desks in a classroom for left-handers, but with 8-10% of the population being lefties, that leaves a shortage of left-handed desks in every classroom in America.

The fact that the English language is written from left to right creates an even bigger disadvantage for left-handers though, because it forces us to push the pen across the page. This is in stark contrast to all those righties who get to effortlessly drag the pen across the page while resting their arm on that comfortable right-hander desk of yours.

Fortunately for us lefties though, we're inherently smarter than our right handed counterparts:

http://isittrue.msn.com/slideshow.aspx?cp-documentid=1319838...

Who's to argue with Einstein, Newton, Franklin and Picasso? :)
I agree with the basic thesis - you can earn lots of money, and deserve it.

But the essay as a whole suffers from assumptions that the market is pretty efficient. It's really hard to believe that the market as a whole is anywhere near efficient, particularly the CEO market. Was the CEO of Bear Stearns or Lehman Brothers worth the salary they got?

(I think it's easy to point at a lot of likely reasons for distortions in the upper tiers of the salary scale, but I think that distracts from the point - a good number of CEO salaries were empirically demonstrated to be poor investments.)
Which is why you should never go this route. Work in the local library and a coffee shop (for scheduled calls). It's better than your home office and it keeps your hours clear.
Ask HN: Thought tracking (fuzzy)
I'm quite confused about this problem so I'm just going to blurt out. I hope someone can make sense of it and help me.

I find remembering everything I think of and about difficult. I spend much of my day thinking but I don't feel like I reap the rewards that I should. I forget what I was thinking about, I come to a conclusion on something but forget it or don't develop it, I don't develop my thoughts fully enough to explain them to people, I don't know when to stop.

Can anyone suggest a strategy or framework for organising or tracking thoughts that doesn't require me writing / designing my own software?

I think what I want is something that allows me to organise my thoughts into concepts or maybe thinking projects. I can add and evolve one over time adding the thoughts I have. I can discontinue one and put the reasons why it has been discontinued or fork it off into multiple thinking projects. I could write why I'm thinking about that thing and add the details of my life situation at the time so I know where I was emotionally when I was thinking those thoughts.

You could also phrase this question as: are there any analysis techniques that I can apply to understanding life in general?

I really want something I can use with just plain text files.

Any ideas or guidance will be appreciated.
And I know multiple entrepreneurs who did exactly that who have amazing families. You want probably the worst person in the world to take life planning advice from? "A local VC".
Bilski v. Kappos [ http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bilski ] was recently picked for review by the Supreme Court. An affirmation of the Federal Circuit decision (rejecting the patentability of a "business method patent" for hedge fund trading) could have a sweeping impact on software patents.

Those in the software patent industry (law firms, et al), as well some companies with extensive patent holdings, have filed amicus briefs against the Federal Circuit decision [ http://www.patentlyo.com/patent/2009/03/bilski-v-doll-round-... ].

Obviously, there has been a lot of activity concerning this case: [ http://www.patentlyo.com/patent/2009/08/top-patently-o-posts... ]