skysight-inc/HackerNews huggingface dataset:
The only risk McBride ever took was whether or not his deal with Microsoft would be uncovered. If you look at the timetable of all the transactions around the investment by baystar it is clear that something is very smelly indeed.

I highly doubt that there are many situations to be sketched where a large and wealthy company is willing to pay money under the table to start a set of legal proceedings that are doomed to fail against innocent bystanders.

And if any such companies do exist then I hope they will follow SCOs trail, only a bit swifter please.

As for McBride leaving SCO, one way to interpret this is that there really are no more bits of meat left on the corpse.
To be fair I often count the number of other women at tech events I go to... mostly because it's obvious and easy. I mean, I don't even need to take my socks off.
You could base bonuses on overall sales and product quality over a 3-5 year horizon. Otherwise it's easy for a hardware company to suicide by pushing crap (coughRCA Thompsoncough)
Don't worry, I have a large "No Smoking" sign taped on the front door.
Technology is possibly one of the most meritocratic fields that there are. Programmers and scientists respect results, and generally are poor with the surrounding social issues. I've never heard anyone say "oh, yeah, that paper, too bad it's authored by a woman." or "I'd love to accept this patch, but I'm not gonna bother looking, a girl wrote it." I've won (well, second place, actually) a programming competition with a female partner.

I won't deny that there are few women around here. I think there were 14ish in my program? But the problem won't be solved if you run around trying to make special rules for the girls.
"while others can appreciate the level of engineering and the minds that went into the precision you can feel when you are driving it."

I'd like to see a blind test for that. And who cares anyway if an expert can detect a certain "feel", other than for status?
I believe Zuck took out $40 millions under the table a few years back.
It seems a lot like SETI@Home or the Google Toolbar, or really anything that sends back "anonymized data" or compute cycles.
How about designing software that optimizes daydreaming?

My work cycle involves writing code, checking email, and doing research online. Rarely does my mind wonder to other things when I'm coding. I figure this is a result of at least two factors: (1) Coding is more mentally engaging than email and research. (2) My IDE doesn't have any interesting links. The only things I can click on to distract me from a programming task are files containing other programming tasks.

Anyone have a lot of free time on their hands? I'd like to place an order for a Firefox add-on that takes banner ads and gratuitous "related article" links, and replaces them with excerpts from my coding to-do list that link back to Eclipse...
I won't deny that there are few women around here. I think there were 14ish in my program? But the problem won't be solved if you run around trying to make special rules for the girls.

"Don't hire strippers. No lap dances." aren't special rules for the girls.

Technology is possibly one of the most meritocratic fields that there are.

Yes, clearly there are no social issues and sexism in technology, which is why we get blog posts about it from women who take issue with blatant examples of sexism in technology.

Sarcasm aside, I can't recommend the above video highly enough.
> Those things have no concern for the feelings of American women.

Sorry, I've edited your quote. You're still projecting your morals onto others. See my response to your sibling. ( http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=891269 ) You won't change hearts and minds with a message of "You're wrong."
This is the big part of Microsoft's Vista problem: without software which uses the many system-level improvements, users don't see a benefit. As long as developers are targeting XP that's not going to change - it'd probably be worth it for them simply to give away free 7 upgrades at this point just to boost demand.
Actually, Apple has a good track record of supporting old hardware for years.

They just ended that record with the Snow Leopard/Intel requirement, but that seems like a reasonable thing to do.

And your old PPC hardware runs fine with 10.5.
The proper course of action ought to be Apple just automatically deleting the offensive keywords and letting the application be approved.
No -- I think the fact that it's considered culturally inappropriate to express clearly racist and sexist opinions is a benefit -- it's the first step to stemming the spread of that cultural virus.

I disagree - and I think the fact that my first, intentionally ambiguous, comment was modded down (by some) is a hint why. I had the temerity to as much as HINT that some people are not honestly outraged by this, and was immediately shot down.

The problem is not with expressing clearly racist or sexist opinions - the problem is that any such subject automatically becomes a minefield, and anyone except the clueless (or the bored) will automatically either adopt a "how COULD they" attitude, or keep silent. There is no discussion, no explanation of why it is wrong (even if it should be self-evident), just something bordering on a witch hunt.

Now, say someone with a sexist view walks into the conversation. Having an IQ higher than, say, a garden gnome, they immediately pick up on the "right" thing to say, and join in the chorus - possibly even becoming the loudest voice. Have they actually learned anything or been convinced of anything, other than how to act?

I'm just generally not a big believer in taboos. I feel that talking about problems - HONESTLY talking about problems - is better than pretending they don't exist.

Edit: and now you got modded down. See, this is what I mean - it's such a polarized topic, it makes it almost impossible to have a normal conversation.
I imagine a far greater proportion of the potential audience consists of (guys who get offended on behalf of women for sexist behaviour) than consists of (women who may or may not care). On that basis this behaviour should be stopped. Not because zero tolerance is the right answer; that way lies political correctness gone mad.
Hmm? llvm has been shipping in various forms since 10.4 at least.
In my cause it is Mother of Falling Asleep.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mac_vs_PC
SCO used to be a great company - I remember emailing YasminK about all sorts of Xenix and unix questions, and she always helped out. In the days before open source and Linux they offered a great system for the time and excellent customer service.

They could have leveraged their unix experience and customer service culture and built up a strong Linux business. very sad.
> "Don't hire strippers. No lap dances." aren't special rules for the girls.

The way that you're presenting it is, however. "Don't hire strippers because it makes the girls feel uncomfortable." is the subtext here.
I know what JNI/NDK is, and believe me its applicability is very limited. Yes I do develop for Android and I already ported my VoIP (Jingle Audio) library to this platform and I also ported Speex codec using JNI and currently working on UI part of the project I'm involved in. I did this same for iPhone and believe from the deep of my heart that Obj-C is very crappy language comparing even to Java. The only reason why developers use it is because Steve Jobs personally made them to!
Official WebKit Blog: WebGL Now Available in WebKit Nightlies
Blog Traffic Exchange (traffic exchange done right)
The way that you're presenting it is, however. "Don't hire strippers because it makes the girls feel uncomfortable." is the subtext here.

So? You're saying male strippers wouldn't make the men feel uncomfortable?
I was a jackass child. Too arrogant for my own good.

I remember figuring out how to go from the number one, to a hundred, before knowing the names of the numbers. This was before I set foot in a school. I was ahead of the game before I was ever in the game.

I could have benefited from a school for the gifted, but my dad was having a lot of medical problems, so we couldn't afford anything. So I have a lot of resentment towards the education system.

It became a game, where I would figure out how much I could slack off and still get an A in a class. Senior year in HS, I didn't show up for an entire month, and there were no repercussions.

Our whole education system is pathetic. Access to the internet has humbled me quite a lot, but I see a lot of young people with the same problems that I had.

Hmm, I guess I'm still pretty ticked off.
This is very easy to say, as someone privileged enough not to be affected by the issue, and you're making an insane leap to say that criticizing routine discrimination "is how wars start" or somehow imply that it leads to banning gay marriage. It looks like you're missing the difference between suggestion and coercion and, as far as "making others' way of life into the literary Other" goes, well, I think a great way to do that is to assume that everyone is choosing to engage in sexism rather than uncritically going along with the status quo.
I meant to be excluding things like that when I said "about the outside world". But regardless of how you think of statements like that, there are all sorts of others:
* The sun will come up tomorrow.
* Nobody is plotting to have me killed.
* The lamp next to my couch is on.
* Accelerating beyond light speed is impossible.
* People other than me exist.
that can't be proven logically, but that it's still perfectly reasonable to be sure of. In practice, logical proof isn't a workable standard to look for in your beliefs.
Well, although the syntax/idiom is different, the design pattern is the same the Observer pattern.

IMHO, design patterns transcend language idioms and enable people to understand/communicate higher level abstraction.
Tens of millions are in slavery as we speak.

People in some countries cannot get free information and the government closely monitors what they watch and do.

Some countries still "harvest" organs from condemned prisoners to sell on the open market.

And yet we find time to get outraged over a couple of pretty girls lap-dancing a couple of geeks at some conference.

Modern morality is an interesting thing. It seems that it rests on how easy it is to pass judgment, how many people will agree with you when you do, and having the appropriate degree of self-flagellation.
The article describes the new fast-casual restaurant style, which sounds a lot like a modern startup in its ethos:

>>Bill Kim’s [fast-casual] restaurant...“We’re going to serve really good, vibrant flavors. It’s going to be $15. [Customers are] going to be in and out. I’m not going to serve dessert or drinks..."

In other words, make what people want, make it really damn good, and strip away everything else. We know this works for startups, but I wonder if it will work as well for (higher-end) restaurants, which generally try to sell an atmosphere and experience.
Ask HN:  What do you think of my new iPhone/iPod touch game?
It may, it may not. Cultures are totally different.

For instance, I was watching some Torchwood last night. The amount of sex and actual nudity suprised me, because I forgot that other places don't have hangups about such things. The culture is different, rear male nudity is completely normal on the BBC at 9pm, apparently. And that's fine. Their hometown, they get to make the rules.

Presenting hypothetical questions about male strippers is a non-sequitor. What we're discussing is the appropriateness of some girls in slutty clothing at an event. Which is apparently par for the course in that part of the world, so, whatever.

I would argue that hiring strippers in any capacity here in America would be a poor idea, because _everyone_ would feel uncomfortable.
GNewSense 2.3 is out
I usually don't agree with "don't solve problem X, because Y and Z are worse" (society isn't exactly like prioritizing bugs), but in this case - right on.
Like I said, it's not effective. If malware wants to futz with your browser executable, it's just going to patch the executable, not conveniently go through the plugin interface around which you've designed some forgeable security token.
Sorry to hear about that..

The point was not that he used Wii as a keyword..

The point is that Apple runs its software approval process like the Soviet Union ran its government.

Unfortunately game dev has to be native but I for one will never develop for the iPhone natively again.. Safari is powerful enough to handle a lot of apps which could have gone that route instead, i.e. Google Voice..

Best of luck
Ridiculous cultural relativism can be applied to almost any transgression.

If you don't like naked males, don't watch Torchwood.

If you want to be part of the technology community, but feel uncomfortable with strippers and lap-dances, too bad?
It's an cool concept but I'm afraid I don't understand how it works.
If you think about it, there's a class of restaurants that does something like this. What I'm thinking of is a local burrito place that is a little grungy, the employees quick and efficient (but not very polite), and with damn good food.

They've stripped everything that wasn't the core product, and they have a line out the door every day, all day. Even their branding has been word of mouth, I don't know if I've ever seen a real advertisement for them.

I'm sure this kind of restaurant exists in practically every city.
> as someone privileged enough not to be affected by the issue

Yes, my position in life certainly has an effect on the truth value of my statements.

> you're making an insane leap to say that criticizing routine discrimination "is how wars start"

Moral absolutism causes problems. "I'm better than them" causes problems. I'm saying that morality is not cut and dry. You're treating it as though it is.

And it's certainly why people fight to ban gay marriage. Don't you see that, "Women find stripping offensive, it drives them away, don't let that happen" is the same thing as "We find homosexuality offensive, we can't let that happen"? Those who feel they're on the moral high ground will do all kinds of things to impose their morals on others.

> It looks like you're missing the difference between suggestion and coercion

In this case, you may be suggesting, but other comments here are certainly imply coersion.

> assume that everyone is choosing to engage in sexism rather than uncritically going along with the status quo.

You're assuming that the woman there are offput by the 'strippers,' and that's why they weren't attending the conference. I'm merely pointing out that that may not be the case at all.
I was surprised in other parts of Asia, how common a practice it is to engage 'race girl' PR staff for the most civic of events.

For an open source promotion we had in Thailand I interviewed several stunning PR girls [tough job but someone has to do it].. Fortunately among these air hostesses and models to be were some students with genuine interests beyond makeup and fame.

The impeccably dressed PR beauties we chose, did a fantastic job of translating the message of free software 'as in beer and freedom'. We gave demos and handed out 12 thousand promo folders with Gimp and Blender on CD over 4 days. Exhausting but fun.
"How about designing software that optimizes daydreaming? For example, one problem with drifting is that we’re often unaware we’re doing it. We can hit upon a cool idea but never even realize it. Imagine an app that randomly pings you to see if your mind is wandering — and if it is, lets you record what you’re thinking about."

Wow. That sounds insanely annoying. This suggests that, since we don't realize when we've hit upon a cool idea, we should just write down everything we're daydreaming about. Imagine having to read through all of that junk just to potentially find something good you might have thought of.

I suspect that the premise is wrong - we're probably not all constantly having genius ideas that we don't recognize in between daydreaming about dinner and youtube videos. If an idea comes up while I am daydreaming that is useful and relevant, I almost always realize it, even though I may not always write it down. Cultivating the habit of writing these ideas down is useful and necessary, but I don't see how a constantly-pinging app would help with that.
"""It's based on Ubuntu, but without the non-free parts that Ubuntu includes by default, or suggests that you download."""

gNewSense - If you really don't want Linux to support your hardware.
There's description on the video page. Also see http://www.dropzap.com.
Hi prbuckley (and that goes for ohad as well), thanks for your reply and my apologies if my comments sounded undeservedly critical.

I'm glad to hear that you will be iterating over your product. I suppose I underestimate the inefficiencies around using LinkShare.

But I hope you'll be able to use my comments as a way to improve at least your messaging. At it is now, it's really as if bit.ly were adding their Amazon code every time they were shortening an Amazon link. To some people, that would make them a great business. To me, it's just shady.
I have this feeling that we're just going to have to agree to disagree.

Good luck.
Kotaku writer talks about dealing with long-term videogame addiction
For the sake of the rest of us, care to elaborate?
And it's certainly why people fight to ban gay marriage. Don't you see that, "Women find stripping offensive, it drives them away, don't let that happen" is the same thing as "We find homosexuality offensive, we can't let that happen"? Those who feel they're on the moral high ground will do all kinds of things to impose their morals on others.

Moral relativism is equally as tired as absolutism.

Hiring strippers for a technology event is a simple question of social graces, class, and creating an inclusive environment -- not morality.
Ask HN: Virtual PBX for startup?
Can anyone recommend a good virtual PBX service for a startup? We don't have an office, everyone works from home or satellite offices. Our current 1-800 number just rings up one of our staff at their location.

I'm looking into services like:

Phone.com
RingCentral
Grasshopper
My1Voice
VirtualPBX
eVoice Receptionist
Onebox

I've heard bad reviews of RingCentral and I'm looking seriously at Phone.com. Anyone here make any recommendations? Also wondering what other small companies are doing for phone services?

(If it matters, we're a Canadian company but the vast majority of our customers are American.)

Thanks!
WebGL Now Available in WebKit Nightlies
Common Usability Mistakes
Here's my practical problem with this:

- We're missing out on 50% of the people who could be good engineers. Programming is a really effective tool for improving our world, so any waste of talent is a Bad Thing.

- Whatever the moral arguments, accepting go-go dancers at events sucks as a way to attract women into our world.

Is shaming conference organizers the most important change we can make? Hell no, but it's low-hanging fruit. It gives us a zero-effort way to advertise that we as a community want more women here. If we can't even manage this, god knows how we'll make any real changes.

It's pretty depressing to read this thread, I thought there was a widespread consensus that the lack of women in computing was a problem. I'd be interested to know if any of the commenters defending the conference agree or disagree that it's important to get more women into our field?
Wow, that's probably the worst one I've seen so far.
Is it really 5% of their 30% profit and not 5% of the overall price?

I'm really curious because I don't know all the details of LinkShare but the way I understood it, it's the same program for apps and music and everything else in the iTMS. Thus, I'd be surprised that the 5% is of Apple's profit since either:

-that would make apps different from music,

-or it would let us know the profit made by Apple on music as well, which I always thought was unknown.
tjpick thanks for pointing out how you can get more than 50 posts out by using the page parameter. Yes, the documentation is not very clear at all and we need to fix that.

rizzn, it's true that most of our users wouldn't be able to use the export API since they are not programmers.

But we're relying on programmers to write the shims needed to go from Posterous to Wordpress, Posterous to Tumblr, Posterous to Blogger. We simply don't have the resources to do this, so we wrote export to be as generic as possible.

Other sites do export by letting you pull down an XML file with all posts. We could do this, but then what about the media? Where should we put that?

The point is, we always want to let you get your info out. We have assured our users (including Scoble and Rubel personally) that they will always be able to get their data out, including the original files they have sent us, if they ever need to.
It's not terrible, but it's nowhere near as good as Microsoft. This is just my impression after owning lots of Apple hardware since 1985... I got left out in the cold a lot.
Thanks Timothee,

This may just be a case of wording, we started as a bit.ly for iPhone apps, and moved into the services for iPhone developers. If bit.ly would offer a premium service where you use a subset of their URLs (say, bit.ly/app_XXX) and they put in affiliate codes so that they can track your sales data and give it back to you, people's reaction would be 'sweet, more features from bit.ly'.
> I'd be interested to know if any of the commenters defending the conference agree or disagree that it's important to get more women into our field?

I think it's important to get intellegent people into the field, regardless of gender. However, it's foolish to judge a conference in a far-off land by our system of morals.
I use kall8(http://www.kall8.com/index.php), because they are cheap. $2 setup fee and $2 per month plus $0.06 per minute.

37 Signals is using grashopper (http://37signals.com/svn/posts/1973-announcing-ceo-office-ho...)
Clearly there are many different possible ways to be a successful start-up CEO.
Really hard to understand.

You need some kind of natural progression in the demo so people can understand it more. Maybe start with only a few shapes. This could go for the game as well.

This game is not as easy to understand as like bejeweled or Tetris but I can see where you are coming from. The real thrill in those games are being able to set up a large chain.

What makes a game like this fun (and actually most games) are upgrades and level ups. Try having things you can put points into. First thing that comes to mind is special "attacks" or cubes. Maybe a cube that affects two levels of cubes instead of just the same size.
Other people still have problems even if you refuse to acknowledge them - and your position in life does matter simply because you've never been forced to acknowledge those problems' existence.

> Don't you see that, "Women find stripping offensive, it drives them away, don't let that happen" is the same thing as "We find homosexuality offensive, we can't let that happen"?

Well, sure, if you misrepresent the problem your argument looks better. Our argument is quite simple: don't demean people. Demeaning women? Bad. Demeaning gay people? Bad. Getting upset about the inability to use your religion as a justification to demean people? Tough luck.

> You're assuming that the woman there are offput by the 'strippers,' and that's why they weren't attending the conference. I'm merely pointing out that that may not be the case at all.

Note that no one here is saying Yahoo should be shut down, hack day stopped, etc. The only thing people are saying is that there should be a clear message that this behaviour is wrong - and that we should be encouraging everyone to recognize and refuse to participate in it. Conference strippers aren't the only reason why the gender ratios are unequal but the attitude has gone a long way towards making our field unattractive to anyone who doesn't fit a rather unenviable stereotype.