skysight-inc/HackerNews huggingface dataset:
Yet another righteous 37signals post. Yawn.

Twitter is a an extreme outlier. Anyone with two synapses to rub together understands this and the implications. It really does give them a lot to blogsterbate about though.
With respect to the insulting, I think it is common knowledge that the insult is the weapon of the weak.
there needs to be a way to force the rendering agent to be used, this would make the plugin agent much more viable instead of having to call cf: in front of a web address. I can see this being a good thing but also could be a bad thing, this doesn't fix the browser vulnerabilities that are still out there, merely your rendering engine. I would hate for people to be misled into thinking their version of internet explorer 6 is the latest and greatest because of the chrome rendering agent.
It's a shame there aren't more threads here about 37signals that mention their products and less threads about their snarky, linkbait blog posts.
A Twitter Bot in One Line of Code
Agree completely. But there are ways and ways of going about that. He should stick to talking about software though, ("don't use Mono") rather than attacking people ("guy who wrote zillions of lines of free code is a 'traitor'").
Really well-written and illustrated example of when it's appropriate to use async messaging or not.
At least he was listening to what people were saying.

Still baffles me that he didn't think of the consequences before launching.
Iran Has a Secret Nuke Plant
FWIW, "Apologist" is perhaps not quite so strong a word as you think:

"a person who argues to defend or justify some policy or institution"

"Apologists are authors, writers, editors of scientific logs or academic journals, and leaders known for taking on the points in arguments, conflicts or positions that are either placed under popular scrutinies or viewed under persecutory examinations."

"One who makes an apology; One who speaks or writes in defense of a faith, a cause, or an institution."

It doesn't imply that there's anything to "apologise" for in the usual sense: it means "to defend" or "argue for".
imo this is how government should work, not do the work for us, but promote and reward for the work that is done.
Yeah I think that's an artifact of the "per-capita by State" metric being used, which really isn't all that useful. If you were to combine all of New England with New York and then compare, California would come out ahead. (Or just compare Northern CA with MA)
> That said, a company is worth whatever someone is willing to pay for it.

This implies transaction takes place in an efficient market - i.e. bidders have full information about the thing they're buying. Tech start-ups market is quite far from being an efficient market, as we see proven time and time again.
I imagine the type of person who would install a random "Mac Codec" on their machine isn't going to start up a VM with OS X running to test it out, first.
NO! Don't write your own!! That's what got us into this mess in the first place!

Find one you like, and do what you can to support it in some way.
yes, but also no.

Zealots tend to do a lot of damage to projects - especially FOSS projects. And it's hard not to class Stallman as a zealot.
Maybe I'm a cynic, but I think anyone who calls it 'networking' is absolutely building a 'resource' to be exploited.

When you're legitimately interested and genuine, it's just called 'meeting people and making friends'.
For more up to date information and projections: www.gleamviz.org (pardon the shameless self promotion)
It is true that pathogenic organisms will be killed by bringing water to boil.

However, this is not gauranteed to destroy toxins produced by organisms. For example, Clostridium botulinum needs to be boiled for ten minutes to destroy the toxin. Cyanobacterial toxins aren't killed by boiling.

Like another poster said, bringing water to the boil will eliminate most safety risks.
I'm taking this to mean that he received one or more cease and desists for using the company(s)' brand mark.

*The above statement is pure speculation.
Shouldnt that be had a secret nuke plant. :)
I am so sorry to hear about this. My condolences.

I went through the same thing. My co-founder was also in the "I'll give you a kidney" category. OP is right; something like this really puts things into perspective.

In my case, I decided not to continue for 2 reasons. First, there was too much work for one person (there was too much work for 2 people). But more importantly, I just didn't care anymore. I ended up taking a job and it was a quite a while before the passion returned.

Respect to OP for making the decision to continue. Greg is with you, even if in spirit only. Please succeed for those of us who didn't.
Pretty Fonts Are Possible
Hear the feedback. Iterate fast.
Perhaps news about their products just isn't as interesting?
I hear the sound of back-pedalling...
My condolences for your loss.

Talk to those who will listen: to friends, to family, to a counselor, to folks you meet at the electronics store. Do what you need to do for yourself, and give yourself time; don't be surprised if it takes longer than you think. Mourning cannot be pencilled into a time slot; it does not mesh with Google Calendar. Don't worry about startups and hacking if you find, at times, that the energy is not there; that energy will be back in its proper time.

---

[Hackers: I see that mine is only the second comment. This is understandable, even laudable in many circumstances: The convention on HN is to speak only if you have something original to add.

That convention has its limits. There is nothing original to say when a friend or colleague dies; nearly every writer in human history has had their shot at the topic, as will most of us in our turn. But speak anyway. Use the standard words. What's important in mourning is the act of speaking, not what you say.]
Web-based apps are here to stay and over time will get bigger. By refusing to play the game, MS is burying its head in the sand and pretending the problem does not exist.
Has anyone considered the possibility that Godin just made a mistake and is legitimately not a slime ball?
37signals is starting to sound bit bitter and jealous.
I don't blame de Icaza for being hired by MS; I blame him for all the bloat to be found in each of his projects. He could be pure as whitest snow and MS would still be happy with how what he puts out slows down the Linux desktop experience.
What surprises me is the unpopularity of FORTH. The interpreter is simpler than BASIC and the language spans many more levels, from bit groveling to macros and function composition.
I disagree with his post. Maybe this kind of approach works for employees ... but when you are an entrepreneur and need to get the think done real fast not because your boss is asking but because if dont do that you are dead ... the Joel approach is much more realistic.

At this scenario, the idea "Be smart. Be clean. Be simple. Ship! And keep a small roll of duct tape at the ready, and don’t be afraid to use it." is just impossible. You have to choose and you have to choose really fast.
Servant Leadership Works for Startups
Dear @Biz, @Ev, and @Jack: Please show us the money
However they said nothing which hadn't been said previously, and they said it in a disingenuous way.
Not to mention the fact that even non-lisps are getting progressively more lispy over time.
And if you don't like it...?
Not everyone agrees that this is a mess.
Networking Named Content (PARC's take on next-gen internetworking)
Interesting, though I found this comment section hilarious:

"The new bricks -- which the Brick Industry Association says are not actually bricks -- will sell for the same price as traditional clay-based ones. The Brick Industry Association says there is also no proof that products using fly ash will last as well as traditional brick."

Some classy FUD there from the BIA.
Rsnapshot. Fire and forget filesystem snapshot utility for making backups
So it's a motion sensor, then?
That may be the definition of the word, but look how it is used in mainstream usage. It is typically used to describe someone who is defending something that is not usually defended. Such as Nazi Apologist, Hamas Apologist, Stalin Apologist, etc. You don't hear anyone using the phrase "Clean Air Apologist", do you?
I considered it for a moment but immediately erased the thought from my mind.
Dupe: http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=841287
Mono's situation regarding Microsoft's patents is murky at best. While nobody can tell exactly what patents Mono risks violating, nobody seems to be able to clear it entirely.
Perl Myths Talk 2009
"I apologize if anyone was confused by my original post,..."

In DC this is called the non-apology apology where you express regret for someone else's error.

The real apology version is: "I apologize for my [mistake|error|imprecision|lack-of-clarity]".

The Tylenol Scare showed that massive overcompensating action is how you recover from a PR hit (http://www.aerobiologicalengineering.com/wxk116/TylenolMurde...). You cannot earn back goodwill with half-measures.
Why? If I'm designing a new table I want to make out of wood, should I go find someone elses designs, ready made legs etc and use them?

I'll write my own if I want to thanks.

The 'mess' is relying so much on 3rd party libs in the first place, without completely understanding them.

Write something, and learn massive amounts in the process.
The difficulty with conventional condolences is that they appear, to me, hollow when I type them, even when I mean them. Without the ability to use the sound of my voice or physical contact to convey sincerity, I'm at a loss.

With that said, I'm sorry.
The Dog Ate my Global Warming Data (key climate data is missing)
Find woman and man designer watch online
I found it quite ingenious [sic]...
I like 'Big Bang Videos'
I like the thought of a second industrial revolution. We have the technology. We can rebuild (him).
That does have the advantage of consistent branding.
I heard that fly ash can be radioactive - I hope these bricks are not.

>The recipe incorporates large amounts of fly ash -- a fluffy, powdery residue of burned coal at electric plants, that can otherwise wind up as a troublesome pollutant.
My condolences as well. Untimely death is an incredibly hard thing to cope with. Take the time you need and know that as you continue on your co-founder's spirit lives on both in your friendship and in your work.
May the man rest in peace and may you go forth and live your shared dream. Amin.
I believe this article is more balanced: http://www.itwire.com/content/view/27980/1090/
oblig. challenge: twitter bot in 140 chars...

BTW: great twitter API, and demo of bash as a JSON webservice server implementation language. It repays careful study. Also "bash" has got to be the best name for a hacker's language.
I don't think the consequences were very obvious. All the service does is aggregate the data pulled in by Google alerts, twitter, and a couple other services so that people can see it all on one page. This is stuff that everyone can already see on their own, so literally nothing has changed. The only difference is that he is offering companies the option to pay money to respond to feedback directly on this aggregated page instead of through the various mediums where it was originated, and I don't think it was at all a given that people would freak out about this.
I've told the story before: when I was a VC, a deal almost fell apart because the California Secretary of State rejected the new articles of incorporation after the funding. They didn't like the voting structure for some bizarre reason.

Incorporate in Delaware - it's the safest, because they 1) give more leeway to management and 2) the Chancery court there has a ton of caselaw so there are very, very few surprises.
Why? What do you see wrong with the Berkeley curriculum?
Don't forget that this data excludes angels. My feeling is that CA companies tend to get way more seed/startup money from angels than do MA companies, where firms like Flybridge, Atlas, etc. do early stage investing.
A Different Way: Traits in PHP
We're more likely to behave ethically when we see rivals behaving badly
Miguel de Icaze has been an asset to open source as both a vocal critic (http://primates.ximian.com/~miguel/bongo-bong.html) and a significant contributor (see OP citations).
Top Unanswered Questions in Geeky Movies
I don't think anyone disagrees with that.

The point of the analysis is to answer the question "if you're a team that has identified a promising market and looking to build a product, where should you be?"
More infrastructure and architecturing stuff please!
if the only qualifier for "one line" is that its a big chunk of code with no line breaks, i think i could do more than just a twitter bot on one line.
Greg, you will be missed. Rex, you must always press on.
bigbangvideos.com is actually available.. You should REALLY go for it!
A good pros/cons view of Fly Ash in concrete.
http://findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_gx5204/is_2003/ai_n191...

And if it is radioactive (which I haven't seen referenced anywhere) then we're screwed because FA is used everywhere.
Richard Posner on "How I Became a Keynesian"
They only "Hijacked" 200 pages. I don't think it's such a big deal. It think he did the right thing though.
Interview with Cydia developer Saurik about Apple's Signature server
When I google for a bug/question in Python, I invariably find remarks about the same Python I am using (CPython, the effective standard and single implementation that works on all platforms equally well which all users have rallied around).

When I google about the same for whichever of the multitude of Common Lisp implementations exist out there, I have to filter down to which one as well as which platform.

That is a tremendous difference, especially for newcomers.

As for "actual" support, given the focus on a single implementation (which I understand and like that it is not possible with CL), when you need to hire some random consultant service, you don't have to do the same thing when filtering prospective people.
I was somewhat surprised by the cost. They mention current LED bulb prices around $100 and are driving it towards $20-$25. Which ones are they talking about? I found some on Amazon for $5-$10.

Maybe it's not the right kind of white light. I know that LEDs have pretty low spread (they only cover 10's of nm in wavelength) and in order to assemble a good white light you have to have the right number and intensity of LEDs to produce the consumer-friendly color.
Anecdotical evidence is not needed when you can get hard figures; http://news.netcraft.com/archives/2009/08/31/august_2009_web...

I find the "Totals for Active Servers Across All Domains"-graph at the bottom especially intriguing.

Either Microsoft didn't pay their NetCraft-bill, or IIS is falling off a cliff here.
Indeed.

I'd imagine searches for 'kidnapping' spike every time a pretty young white woman goes missing too.
Tool of the Day: Easy Online Invoicing With Invoicera
Microsoft Patent for Embedding Data in Whitespace
Mirai used to be one of the high-end 3D animation and modeling tools. If my memory does not deceive me, it was written in a Lisp dialect.

Wikipedia (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mirai_%28software%29) tells me that it

"traces its lineage to the S-Geometry software from Symbolics"

Unfortunately, it seems that it has slipped into oblivion since 2004. The last high profile project it was used in was one of the Lord of The Rings films...
Fableforge, make your own flash game, looks pretty cool
What reading list do you recommend for a javascript security newb?
When I first heard about this, I thought it was fairly ridiculous - but it's kinda clever, actually. Anyone know how original this idea actually is?
The Creation of Value, modern Patronage
Plenty of great reads linked to by James Governor's inspiring post about the trend.
In APL that just might be possible.
It was a very interesting article. My eyes popped approx every 1.5 pages.
Ah, I missed that. Now that I look closer at the "Current Status", you're right. That is a not-very-straight-forward way to present releases and schedules.
Press Release: 37Signals valuation tops $100 billion after bold VC investment
god I hate PR flacks. "As the [pr] plan was constructed, Johnson & Johnson's top management put customer safety first, before they worried about their companies profit and other financial concerns." Do it for PR, not because its the right thing to do!
The comment can be read as "you're just saying that because you sell training, consulting, books, and advice, not software." Which absolutely has nothing constructive or destructive to say about the merits of Uncle Bob's argument. Looks like an ad hominem to me.
is a convicted monopolist

What the hell does this mean? It's not a crime to be a monopoly!
Greg posted as 'pyroman' here on Hacker News. Many of the articles he submitted were django / python / systems administration related that he had published to his blog, codespatter.com.

http://searchyc.com/pyroman
alguem ten ae uns hacks?
Some Americans get sarcasm & wit... others just don't
a) I keep getting that feedback on victus, but here's my definition, http://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/victus the noun part is first. Funny how living/way of life and conquered share a word :D

b) I'm jealous of doglike energy, can you blame me

c) I walk about 70-110 miles per week, it's something about my sluggish nature. I can jog, but it takes a huge amount of inertial to get me to do it. Usually this energy plateau only happens for me about once per week.
Interesting, it looks like I'm just about using up the cost of my license fee by listening to Radio 4 or Radio 7 constantly:

365 * 16 = 5840 hrs/year, 5840 * 2.5 pence = GBP 146.00

(BBC Licence Fee 2009 is GBP 142.50)
Let's Make Unix Not Suck [Miguel de Icaza] [2000]
As for a) I was referring to Lisp as a family of computer languages - not Common Lisp or Scheme per se, so that might have come out unclear. Maybe because my native language is not English.

However as for b) - Of course I have seen a trend on HN about Lisp, so what's better place to look for answers than here? It's a safe haven, and that's it. Even if all people on HN wrote nothing but code in one of the Lisp dialects, would that be statistically significant at all? Try to find questions in general for lisp, scheme, cl and variations on stackoverflow for example.

I know you have wrote a successful software where you raved about Lisp - and it's cool and all, but that was back then. I also see people talking about Clojure in volumes, but I haven't seen any real world usage of significance statistical merit.

However, when watching presentation at google from Dan Weinreb - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xquJvmHF3S8 or when looking at presentation from naughty dog (for their new engine): http://www.gameenginebook.com/coursemat.html you really have to think about it and say to yourself: 'Hell, why this isn't used more?'. That is all.
You know, I love these articles talking about all the missed monetization opportunities, whether it's for twitter now or craigslist over the past few years.

Now, I don't think @Biz and @Ev are as radical as Craig Newmark in their disdain/indifference/whatever you want to call it regarding monetization but it's really inspiring to see people focus more on building something awesome with hundreds of millions of users rather than a cash cow which becomes irrelevant in five years.

It's not hard to imagine that it's just so much more satisfying than taking your millions and running.
1. Jailbreak.
2. SBSettings.
3. RotationInhibitor.
4. There is no step four.

Seriously, why more people don't just jailbreak their devices and make it work the way they want it to work baffles me. Jailbreaking my 3GS (running 3.0 originally) took a total of 3 minutes using the purplera1n method. The redsn0w takes a bit longer and has more downloading involved, but still...
http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=842723
Ha Ha.

Seriously - do you really want to argue that taxes aren't taken using a threat of violence?
Which is why we should rally behind the original async framework, Medusa: http://www.nightmare.com/medusa/ ;)
Everything is radioactive. It's a question of levels, not whether or not it is or is not radioactive.

Popping "fly ash radioactive" into Google gave me http://pubs.usgs.gov/fs/1997/fs163-97/FS-163-97.html, "Radioactive Elements in Coal and Fly Ash:
Abundance, Forms, and Environmental Significance", the most relevant sentences being:

"Fly ash is commonly used as an additive to concrete building products, but the radioactivity of typical fly ash is not significantly different from that of more conventional concrete additives or other build-ing materials such as granite or red brick. One extreme calculation that assumed high proportions of fly-ash-rich concrete in a residence suggested a dose enhancement, compared to normal concrete, of 3 percent of the natural environmental radiation."

As that says, there are other mildly radioactive materials already in use, with insignificant increases over natural environmental radiation. Everything is radioactive.

Furthermore, when used in a brick, the only significant type of radioactivity that would matter is gamma rays, as alpha and beta radiation would largely be block by the brick itself, and, since you're likely to have drywall or something between you and the bricks, the drywall. (Which is way more than you need to block beta.) I'm not sure how much gamma rays there are in the uranium breakdown path, but it may not be as much as you'd think.

Bonus link: http://www.keystonegranite.com/radiation.php ("Trace amounts of uranium are sometimes incorporated into materials used in construction. These include, but are not limited to concrete, brick, granite, and drywall.") Well, so much for the drywall shield. :)
Sure, it's satisfying. But it also costs money - and at some point someone's going to have to pay, or it all folds like a house of cards.
Why does that matter?

Do you really want to argue that it's okay to take other people's money?
Rampage Jackson 702 Motoring R8
Wow. I suppose I have to scale down on my enthusiasm that this will be the first non bureaucratic incubator in India.

Freeman, you should reconsider stuff like this. People you have met and qualified as able entrepreneurs, who, in a risk averse society like India are taking the risk to start a startup - do you think they are out to steal 5 lakh Rs? If these are people who couldn't make 5 lakh Rs a year at a job or people you don't trust, you shouldn't be funding them at all.

This is a shame.
> I am doing my current project in Common Lisp, all the way down.

Right on. What Common Lisp Operating System did you find suitable for what you are doing?
Miguel gave his life to free software. He gave GNU its first desktop environment. If it wasn't for Miguel and his work there wouldn't be Redhat, Suse, Caldera, Mandarake, or any of the major corporate linux distros. Sun would never have bowed to Open Source, in fact, Sun would still be an independent entity in business. Novel would be in a different line of business.

GNOME breathed fresh air into the Unix workstation and made it truly a commodity.

Even Motif would have still been closed if it wasn't for the high quality code that Miguel et al where churning out both in GNOME and also in Gtk and its associated technologies.

In 2001, Ximian was the hottest thing to run on a PC. If they put a price tag on it they could have sold it in custom boxes at $5k and would have had buyers, but it was free, and it was a Unix desktop you could install and upgrade by double clicking on an icon. Fucking gorgeous too.
and _that_ is why you are so good
Interesting that communicating why one should do 'the right thing' appears wrong. And yes I agree it is somehow unseemly.

Perhaps PR has the language to help financial types appreciate the value of good ethics.

I think software development has had similar problems making the case for good s/w engineering practices being financially sound and not just an nice idea.
Duct Tape Considered Harmful