skysight-inc/HackerNews huggingface dataset:
Because anti-trust law is fundamentally flawed and deeply subjective. Activities that were perfectly legal yesterday can be deemed to be an abuse of monopoly if someone decides you're now an monopoly. Antitrust law shouldn't exist.
I'm impressed with the coordination and technology that went into this.

Kinda says something about America though when not only are we too lazy to write full blogs, read full blogs, but now we don't even want to read our tweets. This of course is not a serious comment on your project as more as it is commentary on America's priorities.

Awesome work and amazing landing page design!
We just integrated zendesk into django using an app called django_zendesk, so far so good.
No. I am using wordpress.com services.

The problem I guess is with too many hooks and too much of javascript that is getting loaded. They should go for something like lazy loading I feel.

The editor in particular takes a lot of time. Wordpress is apparently aware of this problem and asks to install Google Gears to get it loaded faster.
- Keep a finger on the pulse on what's new
- grow old more slowly
- keep stimulating the mind to encourage new idea generation
- and of course - procrastinating
Ok if you like toy houses, but the points made are moot. This is just feel-good hippy shit that distracts from real progress.

Already been done- called mobile home, trailer parks, etc.
Next time you dry past a mobile home park in a relatively affluent region of the country, the cars parked there are not rusting and up on blocks, they can be pretty nice, the people there are not poor. People are often living there because its cheap and efficient, or a second home for work reasons.

Cost - its the land that costs. As they say, a house is a wooden box that sits out in the rain and rots.

If you want efficient housing a medium sized earth sheltered house is simply the best you can get. But you'll never get a loan for it. You can actually heat one of those in the winter with a few people and a few candles. Its because the 'outside' is always a constant temperature, about 50 degrees F.

Theres no reason to think that one of those toy homes would be much less efficient than, say, if you scaled it 2x. The the shape and construction that would really matter.
High Frequency trading is not the same as flash orders. The title was a screwup by the tech. The actual title was putting a "U.S. Proposes Ban on ‘Flash’ Trading on Wall Street":

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/09/18/business/18regulate.html

For a response in the tech from a high frequency trader:
http://tech.mit.edu/V129/N40/Iba.html
Ok, I have to flag this. First, the article is from September. Second, the headline is incorrect. Third, this has nothing to do with banning HFT, instead it discusses a ban on a particular practice that many exchanges undertake.

Flash orders are orders that are presented to a select few market participants before they are presented to the general market. In return, those market participants keep the order flow within one specific market.

Banning flash orders will not ban HFT. It might cause certain HFT to retire certain models and come up with new ones, but that's about it.
It's been doing a pretty steady incline.

So what? That number only gives you an idea of money in long positions on listed company stock at any given moment. GS isn't making their money because the market as a whole is going up (or, at least not directly from long positions), they're making it because they can make some unbelievably large number of bets a day where they have just enough of an information advantage to expect to make fractions of a cent in profit on each.
Perhaps Joel has discovered why VCs are so dismissive of 'lifestyle' companies.

If 37Signals starts to see market erosion then we'll know the VCs are correct and its grow fast or wither till irrelevance.

Personally, I hope the VCs are wrong and that in fact what Joel has to do is undercut his competition in a way they cannot answer without destroying their business model. This is what Clayton Christenson talks about in "The Innovator's Dilemma."
How are shell scripts and flakey logic an improvement on Apple's cross-platform development/usage model?

gcc -arch i386 -arch ppc -arch x86_64 -isysroot <SDK path> example.c -o example

Done.

> file example
example: Mach-O universal binary with 3 architectures
example (for architecture i386):	Mach-O executable i386
example (for architecture ppc7400):	Mach-O executable ppc
example (for architecture x86_64):	Mach-O 64-bit executable x86_64

I can even transparently run PPC binaries on my x86 Mac.

Universal binaries are a core component of this easy-to-use (for developers and users alike) architecture independence.
They do this with their xbox division too, often buying out exclusivity or paying to dumb down products (so that ps3 version don't get any enhancements) and various other ways to artificially improve their product instead of truly innovating.
I'm interested. I'm (stuck) in the Cranberry Twp area - in case anyone's there as well and wants to carpool.
How GPS devices pinpoint the location of moving objects
How is this example any different than putting tons of effort into keeping other devices from making use of iTunes to transfer music? Or only allowing your OS to run on the hardware you choose? etc.

I don't agree with any of this of course. But anyway, Microsoft has changed since this time, haven't they? I hope so.
Not really, you can't nest <a> tags in html (you can in SVG, though)
Why would you never get a loan for it?
Trac is the best I've used so far. It is extensible, and yet the out-of-the-box setup is very useful on its own.

If there is one I would absolutely stay away from, it would be Remedy (from BMC software). Remedy, even after all these versions, has one of the worst interfaces I have ever used, and has a lot of illogical limitations.
Luckily for Trevor, when Canadians reach 40 they start aging backwards, at least until they reach 80. Then they turn into robots. :-)

HBD, tlb!
That may be one of the best short and thorough answers I have seen when explaining anti-trust. Thanks for that.
Not that I would mind, but why does everyone need to use GNU/Linux? The only practical benefit would be better support for things like gaming. It seems much more important to increase mindshare for open standards and free software. GNU/Linux is perfectly viable as it is.
I wonder if I was the only one who saw "40 years ago today..." and thought of Sesame Street (thanks to the Google logo of the day).
That's one of the most useful comments I have seen here for quite some time, thank you.
But 27.1 says:
Everyone has the right freely to participate in the cultural life of the community, to enjoy the arts and to share in scientific advancement and its benefits.

Which is directly in opposition to copyright. UDHR seems to stand on the fence on this issue.
An entrepreneur's guide to choosing a business structure
I found that a lot of old classic books in physics, mathematics and science are pretty readable. Such as those reprint titles from Dover Publications in U.S. Even Richard Feynman's lectures are pretty easy too read.

And books from early 20th century on psychoanalysis are readable, too.

It maybe that I am more experienced than I was so I can read those books faster with better comprehension. Or maybe I am old and fuzzy and thought I am getting their idea right with presumptuous inflated ego. Or maybe the pressure from getting grades is off the back, therefore I start to enjoy the pleasure of reading.
I think I've just earned a FAIL badge.. I had no idea who Trevor was. Oops. This error has been corrected by http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trevor_Blackwell - Happy birthday Trev ;-)
I appreciate OP's point, but this piece is just a little too "fluffy" to justify its title. I think we can minimize fluffiness by defining terms. My mentor (a brilliant industrial engineer) used these definitions:

efficiency = output / input

effectiveness = goal / input

I don't see them as enemies, but as different metrics.

OP is right about one thing, though: if we focus on efficiency, we can easily lose sight of the goal (which is nowhere in its definition).

[EDIT: Thanks, eru, for pointing out my errors. Fixed.
"Ok! Ok! I must have, I must have put a decimal point in the wrong place or something. Shit. I always do that. I always mess up some mundane detail."]
I'm a little sad to read this article. Are you always in a position where slow growth eventually means slow death? Or is it possible to find a niche where you can emphasize craftsmanship, quality, and a decent pace?

The reason I ask is that a lot of software developers actually like the idea of working for a small, highly profitable firm that stays, well, small and highly profitable.

If it is possible, what are some of the strategies you can employ to identify and/or hold on to this niche?

BTW, when I say "small", I don't mean small in the sense of total profits or number of users. I mean "small" as in craigslist small - a company that can keep the headcount low, avoid employing lots of non-technical workers (like sales people), and hang onto what makes a "small" company such a great place to work.
Sounds like fun. I'll be in for that.

How do we know where to find each other?
Are people who spend all day helping animals get better naturally weird? How about those that spend all day looking at tax forms?

Every job has its quirks. People tend to choose jobs where they have quirks that fit. This isn't exclusive to people who write code.
Well, if they were conscious of that, the video that accompanies the article wouldn't have reminded me of local public access programming from the 80's. That was painful. Listen, I get it if you can't help the surroundings you are shooting video in, but could you show some emotion? That was almost worse than people reading from a script while presenting.

Holy cow.
80legs is kinda evil.

You see, it runs on Plura, which is essentially spyware piggybacked on the flash game du jour. Desktop Tower Defense is one of their clients. When you play DTD, they sell access to your computer, and use your CPU and your network connection to spider web pages.

80legs is so cheap because they don't have to pay for servers. Does that sound entirely ethical to you?
I don't think this is specific to open source; anyone who's worked at a closed-source company can certainly tell the same story about stuff being quashed by egos higher-up. At least in the open source community, if you feel strongly enough, you can fork it and go off without the egos.
Neuroscience is the new "I read it on the internet, so it must be true." I'm glad we have some "neuroscience" backing the idea that you should be interesting to keep your audience's attention. Everyone seems to be an expert in neuroscience these days.

Every time I see "neuroscientists have proven" in a lay press article with no citiation, it just reeks of handwaving and an "appeal to authority" type of arguement.
Creately: Web Based Mind Mapping & Drawing App
Is it really fair to compare the amount of headaches that an OS that came out in the middle of 1998 (and isn't even supported by the vendor anymore) gives with the amount that an OS that was just released this past year would give?
Clarity - New log search server from Shopify
Your definition is backwards. (Or I misunderstand what you mean by input and output.)

By the way, I'd use different definitions. On the one hand, you can fix your goal and try to get by with the least amount of resources. On the other hand, you can fix your resources and try to maximize what you can achieve. (The problems are the dual of each other. (In the strict mathematical sense of optimization problems.))
Microsoft calls Zoho the "Fake Office" - Zoho responds with a zinger
On 5-year projections,

Oh wait, you say it’s a “conservative estimate?” No, the conservative estimate is that you burn through all your cash in nine months and start taking on consulting gigs to delay a return to a “real job” in corporate America.
normally you couldn't get a loan because banks would be worried about the resale value of a "underground" house. But maybe recently you could have because they were just giving loans to anybody. But now you probably wouldn't have a chance. You'd have to build it with cash, and they cost about 20% more than a conventional house, last I checked.
You need to read Applied Cryptography.
If your construction cost is significantly greater than your resale value, and you intend to borrow a large portion of this cost, then there is not enough collateral for the lender to recover their investment.

A house which you will treasure, but is considered undesirable by the masses will be a problem.
Cool concept to leverage world's disconnected thought leaders
Another look: http://www.zerohedge.com/article/another-view-goldmans-tradi...
"Sorry, can't hear you, busy soaking in my jacuzzi full of money."
I think they crossed that line when they kept google off the iphone.
Also note the XBox 360 support recently added the ability to select movies from the XBox interface. I haven't played with it enough to know if everything is available that way, but as it ties into my recommendations it offers a very good slice (and I don't have a ton of ratings I've made).

Unless you absolutely know that you have no further interest than the streaming the Roku could do, it's hard to recommend a $100 limited purpose box when you could get an XBox 360 for twice the initial investment and a yearly fee. We paid the difference by dropping cable; two to three months can make that up and it's "profit" (sort of) after that.
Because palm isn't supposed to identify itself as an iPod. And it would actually take effort to support other devices, not the other way around.

As for the OS thing, Apple isn't dominating enough of the market for people to care.

Microsoft has not changed. Read my comment on the xbox. As long as they benefit from proprietarity, they will try to undermine anything not theirs. It's because proprietarity opens up various strategies besides just improving a product, which is usually the hardest way to gain market. It allows you to take advantage of exclusivity and your existing powers (market share).
Not so if they have an (unfair) information advantage over mom-pops that allow them to move ahead of the market.
I thought it was a terrible idea but then i came around a bit, too. Might end up with one of the email devices with "lifetime service" in the near future. I'm curious how the device feels, though.
Mandriva Linux 2010.0 is now available - Linux Critic
Could you consider the creation of clustering created by blackhats? They did start out with botnets which started the foundation for clustering and cluster management.
You're forgetting social structures and their intersection with institutional issues, which interest me. PG's view on those mostly relates to technology; mine mostly relate to other fields.
except that these documents were not written by BG.
> I don't have to spend time setting up a PPC virtual machine with a development environment in it

Neither the compiler nor the emulator are perfect. Somebody has to test and debug your packaged app on actual PPC hardware.
Many people cannot understand the difference between a browser and an OS or the difference between Firefox and IE. How can we expect them to manage their OAuth tokens? When OAuth was first writtes many SITES did not even have it implemented correctly (Myspace is a notable example.)

In general, having the average naive user administer any aspect of security beyond choosing a "secure" password is a naive expectation. You can't afford to have both parties acting naively when it comes to Internet security. For this (non-naive) audience, managing OAuth tokens makes sense and Twitter can afford to be naive. For the rest of the Internet audience this approach is probably more dangerous than convenient.
> you can bang out a basic CSS file in minutes

Yeah, but you'll an hour trying to get around some goddamn IE bug.
Clustering has existed for a long, long time before black-hats were doing botnets. The practice of breaking up workloads so that more than one computer could process it has been around almost as long as computing itself.
I'm not clear on what you want to do. Do you want to fuzz a VNC server?

There are some ways you can do that. Try to find docs online that detail the protocol or read the source of open-source VNC servers to infer the protocol. You can then use some existing tools to generate some traffic (peach or scapy, among many others). I'm not a fan of Peach for a few reasons, but some people use it.

In general, you'd want to cover edge cases of inputs being parsed. Signed/unsigned edges for integers, strings of various lengths with common bad input patterns, unordered type-length-value pairs, etc and etc.

Try finding past vulnerabilities in the server you're trying to break and see where others found holes. Check the changelog. Try instrumenting an existing client.
He invented blogging, doncha know.
I'd be there but I'm going to be at the Pitt game.
I've used zendesk and it's pretty awesome. They've made some pretty serious billing mistakes with my account though, and they've been experiencing some growing pains (corrupt database, site unavailability), so I'm not sure if I can wholeheartedly recommend them. The tool itself is fantastic.
Depends on the definition of 'evil' - I used DeCSS for a while and, according to the MPAA, the guys who made that were basically Satan with a modem.
How would The White House use Basecamp to reform Healthcare?
I don't know about you but a lot of people need the external motivation of school deadlines and the bad marks on a permanent record to actually do the material.
If you see a table full of cool guys and hot women eating, drinking, laughing, and having a good old time, that won't be us. More likely, we'd be the table of 8 guys trying to figure out the best beer bargain on our iphones.

Seriously, we usually try to get one of the tall 8-seat tables near the front door. We probably won't be hard to find. Just in case, you can email me in advance and I'll give you my cell.
I'm thinking l0phtcrack.

The original SATAN scanner from Dan Farmer; the concept, though. Bad guys had a bag of tricks that they'd use to get in. He compiled a list and built an automated tester of those tricks.

Some of the concepts that evil hax0rz/crackers used to obfuscate code in viruses have migrated into the mainstream as a method of protecting intellectual property.
"git pull --rebase".
I could imagine this coming from any administration and any congress in my lifetime. Very little has changed no matter how often the parties swapped, and no matter how pretty the speeches were. The content industries continue to be powerful lobbyists, to our detriment.

We are constantly relearning the lesson: don't trust politicians. Democracy is a machine for serving concentrated interests at the expense of the general well-being

Hopefully our champions will stop this. However, there will be no idealistic debate behind the scenes on the topic of what constitutes the public interests. There will only be politicians silently weighing what is in their own personal interest. As it always has been, and as it always will be.
From experience, Kayako is a disaster. Horrendous support and a platform that has had only minor upgrades for several years make it an unwise choice.
Hilarious. Joel's said previously that site licenses and volume discounts are a bad idea ("Bad Idea #1: Site Licenses. "):

http://www.joelonsoftware.com/articles/CamelsandRubberDuckie...
Ask HN: Review our new feature - Most Popular iPhone Apps on Twitter
There are really two questions here.

The first: why did Hacker News start so successfully?
1) A built in group of YC founders to initially populate it.
2) A famous creator with a large following.
3) The strong encouragement of YC applicants to be involved.
4) A clearly defined purpose.

Second: why has it grown so well and continued in its success?
1) Clear guidelines for behavior.
2) Very involved moderation, but without opinion-based censorship.
3) A proliferation of YC-clones and a national increase of interest in entrepreneurship.

And then there's the final question:
What's wrong with Hacker News?
1) After a certain point you level max. There are loads of people here that I could learn a lot from, but the forum is greatly limited and becomes repetitive. The reason new members think that it's devolving is not that HN is changing, but that they themselves are learning.
2) No discussion lasts longer than two days, and all discussions are based around other peoples' news--i.e. reactionay.
3) Thoughtful self-posts are discouraged both by the guidelines and by the unreadable light gray font.
That's GiTime, not GITime for those playing the at-home game.
Levi Strauss is not only probably one of the two most famous anthropologists of all time (Magaret Meade being the other), but his work is cited by many of the foundational thinkers of cognitive science.

His book "Tristes Tropiques" was also so well written that it would have been awarded the Prix Goncourt except that it was non-fiction.

Probably one of the ten most important thinkers of the 20th century, though not nearly so important today.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/science/2009/nov/03/claude-levi-st...
What happened to land of the free, home of the brave? Are you sure you're American?
My best guess is that he thinks that his tweets and followers provide so much value to Twitter that he deserves to be paid.

A slight overestimation of his importance to the Twitter ecosystem.

Self-Important (adj): see: Winer, Scoble, Arrington, et. al.
Let's not forget tiny apartments. Not only space efficient but land efficient too (they stack up).
We have been using Zendesk for over a year and absolutely love it. Highly configurable, very easy to use and fantastic email integration. Highly recommended.
The technology used to help attackers find wireless networks is now used in many corporate wireless network platforms, to detect and block rogue access points.

There's an entire litany of examples where initially subversive technology became useful for defending against the same. The first vulnerability scanners were written to help attackers target vulnerable systems. They were quickly repurposed to help people find and protect vulnerable systems.

The whole "evil hackers" thing is kind of a joke. Hackers are typically clever and often self-serving. By definition, they fabricate tools for themselves which, like anything we have, can be used for good things and bad alike. Many of those tools come into popular use. It's difficult to know what, actually, the intention was behind the tool's creation.
You clearly learn valuable lessons from both; you just learn from each in different ways.

There are an infinite number of ways to fail, each one having the potential to teach you a valuable life/personal lesson (in addition to the lesson of 'don't do it that way if you want to succeed').

From each success, you learn all the secrets of how to succeed in your endeavor, which could be considered the most important lesson. However, because there are fewer paths to success than to failure in most cases, you may not get the same breadth of lesson-learning as you do with failures.

I believe both are valuable for everyone to experience at some point.
go green, go opensource!