skysight-inc/HackerNews huggingface dataset:
The main example on my mind was iPhone patents and how Palm had to tread carefully around them in order to make the Pre:

http://www.techdirt.com/articles/20090121/1932143481.shtml

However, I'd be surprised if other examples didn't exist.

Note: When I said Apple "played the patent game" I wasn't specifically referring to filed lawsuits. The threat of a lawsuit is often enough.
Pointing out that another party isn't arguing in good faith isn't unfair. The case for net neutrality is pretty clear cut and doesn't need to be laid out in full every time someone posts an article, especially from a useless rag like the Wall Street Journal.
It'd be nice if he did that himself...
Microsoft opens an Apple Store [video]
Scientists Prove Toxic Assets are Impossible to Regulate
Also see: http://rjlipton.wordpress.com/2009/10/22/helping-wall-street...
Raindrop seems conspicuously similar to Wave, both in its title and its functionality.

It's interesting to see Mozilla getting more independent, post-Chrome.
Your purchasing decision probably means more to Verizon or Comcast than your vote does to an average bureaucrat. "Large" corporations are dwarfed in size by the US government, which is the largest corporation in the world.
I'm not going to be very popular for saying this however to be honest net neutrality is not currently a problem. So why fix it? Even if John McCain's stated reasons for introducing this bill are completely idiotic and ignorant, to me what the FCC is introducing seems like unnecessary legislation.

If net neutrality becomes a problem, the market will react people will stop using ISP X, if all the ISPs do it then the government should intervene but it is not currently a problem.

I don't live in the US though so if I'm missing something please tell me.
Here's an example of how the math works:

* You decide upon a $5 MM pre-money valuation for the company, and you agree that you both get half of this

* He invests $1 MM, which makes the post-money valuation 5+1 = $6 MM

* Let's say you will be unpaid for a year. You might treat that like an investment of $100,000, which takes the post-money valuation to $6.1 MM

In this example, you would own:

* $2.5 MM in founder shares + $0.1 MM sweat equity

* $2.6 MM total out of $6.1 in total equity

* your ownership would be ~43%

Vesting would apply to founder shares (over, say, 3-4 years) and the sweat equity would vest over the year you sweat. No vesting would apply to his $1 MM cash investment.
Trying again: With this, it would be possible for a user to create a switch/case statement of their own.

n = 3

switch n:
case 1:
print("n is one")
case 2:
print("n is two")
default:
print("n is neither one or two")

by injecting "case" into the namespace of a block in "switch", we'd only have to add one identifier to the global namespace. Here's what some of the implementation code might look like.

@macro
def switch(value):
@macro
def _switch(block):
cases = dict()

def line_callback(value):
if isinstance(value, SwitchCase):
cases[SwitchCase.value] = SwithCase.block
elif isinstance(value, DefaultCase):
default = DefaultCase.block

block(line_callback=line_callback)

try:
result_block = cases[value]
except KeyError:
result_block = default

return(result_block())

return(_switch)

I wasn't thinking of it exclusively as a data structure tool, but also possibly as a way to create your own flow control operations and such.

This might not be the most compelling possible example in the world, but I hope it helps.
Wasn't the old rule of thumb that you price manufactured goods at 3x the production cost?
Which is why the telecoms would fight anything that might actually force them to compete even harder than they're fighting net neutrality regulations.

Large, entrenched corporations only support "free markets" insofar as it makes convenient political cover for "let us do what we want".
Online Casino Enables You to Play Live Games From Your Desktop
Before the advent of live dealer games at net casinos, the outcomes of all games are generated with software algorithm, better known as random number generator. The feelings of playing at these online games do not have equal excitement than when playing at land-based casinos.
3-4=5 in Z6, the modulo group with six elements. See http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Modular_arithmetic
it's difficult to compare a project like memcache to firefox. the memcache bug list page can probably fit on a single screen, whereas firefox probably has hundreds if not thousands of open bugs due to the size of the codebase.

once a list of open bugs gets too big, users won't bother searching for duplicates or can't accurately find them, and new developers won't know where to jump in, so the list just keeps getting bigger.

add to that the fact that many users don't include proper information like how to reproduce the problem, test cases, backtraces, etc. and once developers actually get around to looking at those bugs, they have no interest in tracking down a user whose email will often bounce or isn't running the software anymore, just to reproduce an issue that may have been fixed by some other change months ago.
Happily, this report appears unfounded. There are no per-title limits on Nook lending. Yay!
You can argue that people who use Facebook and Twitter are more likely to revolutionize the world than the people who are watching TV.

In that case although the number of people watching TV is greater their "weighted productivity" is less.
The desktop of my computer bears no resemblance to my physical desk. I have no icons on my physical desk. My physical desk can hold absolutely anything no matter shape or size and I can stack things and put them in piles and clear them off with one swoop of my hand. Also, my computer desktop has nothing on it, which is quite different from my physical desk.

The fact that "windows" can "stack... like paper" shows that the real world isn't being modeled. Last time I checked, windows could not be stacked like paper and windows on my computer have very little resemblance to paper in any other way. I'm quite certain paper wasn't the inspiration for stacking windows.

I think WYSIWYG editors are a bad idea, precisely because they try to model the real world too closely.

Object oriented programming is about much more than modeling real-world objects in code. Sometimes (often in fact) that is exactly the wrong way to create objects.

Trying to model software off real-world objects is how you get stupid things like clicking and dragging to flip pages on a document you're reading, all while animating the turning of the pages.

The examples you give (where they are accurate at all) are about using physical objects to provide a metaphor for understanding software. The perfect example is the trash / recycle bin. It provides a metaphor that makes it easier for people to learn what it does, but it isn't modeled after a real trash can or recycling bin. You don't have to empty it. You can, but it's not required. You don't have to change bags. It isn't picked up twice a week. It doesn't start to smell after a while. It's of essentially unlimited size. If it was modeled after a real trash can, some of these things would have been implemented in some way.
More formats (including HTML) at the official site: http://diveintogreasemonkey.org/
Ask HN: How Do You Find An Internship With A Startup?
Hey guys, I am a sophomore in college right now studying computer science and the time to look for internships for next summer has now come up.

I have looked and while I am interested in a few established companies, I think it would be really cool and awesome to possibly work with a startup.

But the question is...how do I do that? How do I find an internship with a startup? Any ideas?

Thanks!
I hate to be a wet blanket, but the iCanHazCheeseburgers CEO won the lottery. His LOL Cats blog's success was (self-admittedly) not "created" by him. He doesn't even know why it's successful.
Again I'll ask: Since when is a revolution measured by quantity? I mean, Twitter is arguably more cutting-edge than television. So in one sense it's more revolutionary. But television is spreading faster, so that's a revolution that's hitting more people. It doesn't need to be a competition between the two. I for one don't expect to pay television much mind in the coming years, no matter how quickly it's spreading everywhere else.
Honestly, I'm not sure how to answer that question and for me I bet I'm not consistent day to day or hour to hour. To try to put into words what I think is going on in my head: I link based on something in the piece that I think folks here will find interesting. But I don't assume that the title will be sufficient. Only that it will be a primer for following the link.

In this case, the given title wasn't good. So I tried to pick out the primer that led to my saying: "That's interesting". But admittedly I won't spend more than a few seconds thinking about the title. I'm just not too worried about accuracy so long as it's in the general semantic ballpark. I'd say if it leads to an incomplete impression which the article resolves then I'm okay with it. That's why I added the ellipse.

Sorry, I'll try to do better but I'll probably fail. The bookmarklet makes it easy to just throw up interesting stuff. The title for me is simply a shorthand for saying: This was interesting to me. I similarly interpret upvotes - this was interesting to the community. Comments start to get at accuracy - kind of.

To be honest though, even as Gladwell says that second part, it seems to me he wants real world experience informing journalism. I think that's the most interesting bit. Grad school, it seems to me, is itself sheltered from "real" stories. That's my current bias, I guess.
Interesting question, especially how you've phrased it. I don't have a daughter but I've got two little boys, so I'll try but I may not be the best too comment.

Since this article is still on the front page I would like to ask HN how does one deal with the similar issue of letting a young girl know she's pretty without suggesting it's of central importance

Well, my approach would be not to bother letting her know she's pretty. Let's face it, unless she is unlucky enough to be "ugly" in a way that removes her from the accepted norm, there is a high probability that somebody somewhere will date her and love her when she is older.

Not to discount the effect that our culture places on girls and physical attractiveness, but girls learn much from their parents, especially there fathers. If she can see that what she looks like doesn't matter to you one iota, odds are she will not see any real value in any guy that mentions how pretty she is. You can't be swept off your feet by somebody calling you pretty when being pretty isn't how you define your worth.

In other words, by worrying about her getting the pretty comment from you, you're probably working against your intended objective.
I worked at blist a year ago. Their original product was an online database/spreadsheet product aimed at business collaboration (like a web-based version of MS Access). Recently they renamed the company to Socrata and now they are focused on helping government agencies publish data on the web using the same basic database/spreadsheet interface.
I usually try and read it first, but if I know the source really well and know I am going to love the article (which is very rare) then I might just upvote it.
I am also in Atx, and would be interested. I got a ton of ideas, and working on one now...
Simple: Because Apple can get people to pay $599 for the iPhone.

apple can get people to pay over $1000 for an iphone. those phones that are sold unlocked in other countries that aren't subsidized go for well over $599 on ebay:

http://shop.ebay.com/i.html?_nkw=factory+unlocked+iphone+3gs...
I had the same question and re-read the end over again looking for the answer. I didn't find it. The whole premise of the book was rewards (including praise) undermines our intrinsic motivation. Compare it to a book on global warming: here's why it's a Bad Thing. So how is everyone going to live without a car? Who knows--that's not the subject of the book; it is trying to raise your awareness of the affect of driving on the planet.

Praise or a reward is the _easy_ solution. There is no motivator that applies to everyone, everywhere for every situation.

Here is a suggestion. Find out what the people you interact with want and tie it into the system. Do they want vacation? Do they want recognition? Money? As you scale up, create a corporate culture that values some set of things and attract people with shared values.
He's a brilliant writer and a terrible journalist. I agree with you.

I can tolerate him, because he's not obnoxious about his writings (versus somebody like Cory Doctorow, who has a similar ratio of popularity-to-understanding), but at the same time a lot of what he says has got to be taken with a grain of salt.
What makes you think you have to let her know?

I realize you're in the big brother department and would like to protect her. But allow me to ask: would she be any less in need of your protection if she were plain-looking? or homely?

Children are incredibly bright. If she's pretty, she already knows. And I'd be willing to wager that she's already leveraging that knowledge when it suits her.

If you try to prepare her for it, all you're really doing is letting her know how important you think it is. And if she looks up to you, that will reflect on how she values it as a part of her identity. Which I feel is far more risky than calling her 'smart'. Because 'pretty' is transient.
Afterwards. And always if I comment (if it was worth commenting on it was almost always interesting enough to upvote).

Shouldn't this be a poll ?
I wish I could WFH. Us hardware types don't get that luxury.
I would say that it looks more like an extensible message classification "email" client that aggregates more than just email.

The point about the name is interesting.
Who wants to watch soaps about pious mothers-of-8?

You obviously don't live in the US! While it's 'reality' rather than soap, two popular cable shows here include (until very recently) 'Jon & Kate plus 8', about a couple who had twins and then unexpectedly ended up with an additional set of sextuplets after a fertility treatment - they have just divorced, but the Kate character is indeed pious; and '18 and counting' about an extremely pious Christian family who rejoice in 18 their 18 children, with #19 on the way. I wish I were kidding, but I'm not.

I'd worry less about soaps-as-propaganda than you, if only because any kind of drama requires at least some ambiguity of characters and a balance of oppositional characters in order to gain emotional participation on the part of viewers. Of course, episodic dramas like police and hospital shows make it easier to exploit stereotypes if programming directors see fit to do that. Another context that has been the subject of some controversy is in Palestine, where TV channels operated by Hamas, a militant group, have been host to children's shows featuring violently anti-Israel content. Israelis have naturally been deeply offended, while some Palestinians argue they were forced to address the issue by the fact of real-world political conflict.
Code: How to measure WTFs in Sonar ?
Do you think there will be considerable performance difference when using Redis instead of a two column MySQL table for this purpose? What is the utility of using Redis there?
"If net neutrality becomes a problem, the market will react people will stop using ISP X"

Any of the networks your information travels through may decide to de-prioritize traffic to a site you visit. Your ISP is probably only in control of the first few hops.
Hey cool, thank you ! Hate scribd anyway :)

I was hunting around for some greasemonkey details (still am) and came upon this.

It's quite a useful book and really nice of them to make it free.
Buzz Aldrin: Mr. President, will you lead us to greatness in space?
Engine yard rails in the cloud
anybody used rails in the cloud? thinking of using it for an app that will be small, may have spikes from twitter traffic.

opinions about engine yard rails in cloud vs other systems?

much appreciated. J
Yay for irrelevant analogies! Who cares if they shed any light on the topic whatsoever?! Let’s give red-blooded patriotic Americans something we can all get behind, hatred of the dirty commies!

You know what else dynamic linking is up to, Mandrake? Sapping and impurifying all of our precious bodily fluids.
introducing mozilla procmail!
I think your parents were doing a lot more than assigning chores and telling their offspring that they were smart my friend! :-)

Children learn 24/7, not just at designated "learning times". You had the benefit of having been blessed with extremely good teachers as parents.
"... What do people think about this potential downside? ..."

The downside is more than balanced by the upside of having VC connections post YC funding.
You're missing eXist, MonetDB, Sedna, etc.
Personally, I like both (a) making things and (b) making other people happy. It's why I cook dinner for friends. It's why I develop products. I think, as humans, we all have some broken parts in us, and hopefully adding value to other people's lives can help us with them. For some of us adding value to other people's lives includes building products and organizations.
The term NoSQL is catchy but wrong. Some databases with strong theory backing them up, are fall under the NoSQL umbrella and others which are ad hoc and a huge step backwards are too.

I think the ultimate lesson we've re-learned is to use graph, hierarchical, and relational databases in an appropriate manner and to make engineering tradeoffs around consistency as needed. NoSQL is a crappy name for this lesson.
Court Orders The Pirate Bay To Delete Torrents
I could always do that, but there's too many that I am interested in.

I was hoping for a more efficient way but I could go down that route if need be.
One thing you're missing is that for the most part there is no substantial competitive market for broadband internet in the USA. For many people, their choices are "put up with what the ISP offers" or "use dial-up".

As for the necessity, the whole thing was sparked because of stuff that telecom executives actually talked about, so it's not completely speculative, just somewhat preemptive.
It is clearly in the same vibe as wave... only google has already a version with wave, it is opensource and is much further at the moment.
I hope will not start to act like microsoft on innovation. Microsoft is getting used to "try to follow the leader, 10miles behind".
Additionnaly their post doesnt even mention the existence of wave... what to think about that ?
They can't mention google wave in every post to their blog.

Try: http://labs.mozilla.com/raindrop/faq/

>How does Raindrop relate to Google Wave?

>Google Wave is attempting to create a new form of messaging. We applaud their effort to innovate in the messaging space, and if it gains traction, we will be looking at ways to integrate the messaging protocols from Wave into the open, extensible user interface of the Raindrop platform. In the meantime, Raindrop is focusing on complementing existing messaging sources.
the problem i see with it is that it's all client-side filtering. when you access your email account from another computer, a webmail client, an iphone, whatever, all of those messages are still lumped into your inbox unless you have server-side filtering.

i still use procmail on my server to shuffle messages into imap folders before any of the clients see them. mailing lists go to separate folders that i never have to look at on my phone and my inbox stays clean so that new mail notifications on my phone actually mean something important has come through.
I believe that's the same for me as well. I don't feel that I'm selling society, my parents, my peers, etc. short by not living up to my potential. I'm simply selling myself short, and I feel guilty for wasting away something that not many people have.

Then again, I do spend a lot of my time learning and improving myself, and I'm not sure I need a 4.0 to back up some claim to knowledge. The most intelligent person I've ever met was a horrible student. He spent most of his hours studying, but he never really studied the things that his classes were teaching. You could certainly pin that on a lack of judgment, but I don't know anyone that would say he lacked intelligence.
Sustainability and Social Media were the Themes of SAP TechEd 2009
Sure it's possible. It's also possible the $894,379 AT&T gave him last year has something to do with it. This was the most AT&T gave to any single individual while their overall payout to legislators was $9.4M total.

McCain on the 96 Telecom Act:

“It is nothing less than an elaborate influence-peddling scheme in which both parties conspire to stay in office by selling the country to the highest bidder,”

Certainly looks like it.
Ah yes. Sorry, but I'm a n00b at HN for now. Just saw this http://news.ycombinator.com/newpoll

Submitted: http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=897814
ECornell Entrepreneur Online Video Contest
Now through November 30, eCornell is inviting entrepreneurs who are developing (or have already developed) a new product or service to submit a quick video (5 minutes or less) that explains or demonstrates their process for understanding what customers want and satisfying their needs. The first-place winner will receive a full scholarship (a $3,500 value) for Cornell's newest online certificate program, A Systems Approach to Product and Service Design, which arms entrepreneurs with a unique eight-step process for effective product development. Second- and third-place winners will have the opportunity to enroll in two eCornell product design courses each, free of charge ($1,250 value for both courses). Winners will be selected based on quality of response, creativity, and methodology, and will be announced on December 14, 2009. Visit http://www.ecornell.com/l-entrepreneur-video-contest/ to learn more about the contest, review official rules, and submit your video entries. Enter yourself, or send the link to your amazingly gifted and inventive entrepreneur colleagues and friends.
That's a pretty smug attitude to sport without data to back up your claims.

What can be said, with strong data, is that _right now_ the people who produce and create TV shows around the world have more influence and capability to revolutionize global culture than all of silicon valley put together (including our precious Google...) The best chance Facebook and Twitter have to play a role in this game is as a tool to inform and influence key members of this infotainment community.
Good post. It never hurts to refresh on the big picture of these things. Richard Branson's stuff is always great.
Poll: 	Ask HN: Do you upvote an article after or before reading it?
Ask HN: Do you upvote an article after or before reading it?
Upvote before reading article
Upvote after reading article
Thanks for the replies guys! Nice to know I'm not alone. I've been to Door64 events and they seem like a great place to network. It looks like there's enough going on here - so lets take this off line. If you guys could e-mail me your contact information to:

skottie at connersc dot com.

Austin Ho!
The counter-examples of in this thread all share the strong correlation that they were explicitly taught that 'being smart' wasn't an achievement and that praise was withheld until some nebulous 'potential' was fulfilled.

Which is why I don't think they're actually counter examples. The danger described is of teaching children that 'being smart' is, in and of itself, praise-worthy.