skysight-inc/HackerNews huggingface dataset:
"All software is discovered and not invented."

Though this depends on your definition of "discover" and "invent", I would be inclined to disagree. I personally find that the process of writing software has more in common with engineering that mathematics.

Another argument: 'x was discovered', in some sense, implies that x could likely have been discovered by another intelligent being in another time and place. 'x was invented' implies that such was unlikely. Though I would agree that algorithms are discovered (intelligent alien races are as likely to know quicksort as they are relativity and calculus), I don't agree that complex software systems are discovered.
TOP Reasons Why Online Entrepreneurs Would Buy And Sell A Website Online
Buying and selling websites is one of the most profitable ways to make money online. Some online entrepreneurs have even turned it into a part-time business for themselves with most making more than part-time cash.
I'm assuming you meant 100GB? not MB?

I get a lot of mileage out of standard ANSI SQL. Given that Hive isn't quite as forgiving, can you give some specifics on things you lose in Hive that you miss the most?
Yet another endorsement for a conical burr grinder. I like good coffee, without believing my pallet is that sophisticated, but I recently switched from a blade grinder and couldn't believe the difference (and consistency of results, probably the main point).

Keep the blade grinder around though; they're still good for spices :)
I once came on interview with a very big company, a lady that interviewed me slowly began to become medieval and very angry - for no reason, so I got afraid of her and just walked away myself, for goodnes sake. A guy before her was friendly.
Hi guys, this is Ángel Domínguez, the translator behind Daring Fireball en Español.

I’m glad to learn of your interest in the site, and in reply to gr366, I won’t be translating John Gruber’s posts about the Yankees and baseball in general, since here in Spain that sport has practically no presence.

So, thanks for your comments and I hope you enjoy the Spanish version.
Yep, definitely -- actually I have an article on radians which does just that (comparing height on the circle, sin, to distance traveled around, x).

Always happy to discuss on email (kalid.azad@gmail.com) -- I'm not sure if there's something to produce out of it necessarily, but I enjoy the discussion / investigation of personal philosophies & teaching approaches.
Looks like they're using sIFR. Maybe you have flash or javascript disabled?
Oh of course, I never said that the app review process wasn't a horrible mess. My only point was that the dynamic in the post is true: being able to survive two or three months before launching (after development stops) has become a necessary precondition for writing iPhone apps. This plays to hobbyist developers as an advantage, but the overall process is still a disaster and a crap shoot.
Gruber's commentary:
http://daringfireball.net/linked/2009/11/13/app-store-rogue-...

http://daringfireball.net/2009/11/airfoil_touch_situation

The first is basically just the RA release, but the second is his analysis (or refutation of someone's defense of Apple, more accurately).
That and how to work with people to get to the answer.

I would want to work out that problem with someone. For that math problem right:

lets ignore the 20 people problem (aka 20%) right now and pretend that all the people who visisted clicked. for every 100 people who visit, they now get 1 dollar (it was ten cents) before). in order to get $20 if a hundred people visited for every dollar, you would need

20,000 people.

One problem, they need to click. and only 20 people click per 100 people. so in order to really make that money, you would have to multiply again by 20. I would take the 2s out and start counting 0s because I would get confused at this point.

400,000 people. I think. I may have screwed up the 0s. But If I didn't have a chance to slow down and write down the problem I think I would have screwed that up badly. I'm not sitting around and doing those math problems all the time...
I think it all depends on your feature requirements and employee skill set.

My former company got along pretty well with our own mix of Trac/SVN for code and engineering issues, Request Tracker for trouble tickets, ScrumWorks for iteration management and MediaWiki for all other stuff.
I read that that is because the longer the roast the more caffeine gets destroyed.

So stronger coffees are actually less buzzy.
I would agree. At first, I was completely behind their point, but where there might be a gray area is that, as you said, the Mac OS X API function gives an image to the application running on the Mac. Then, I can only assume that Airfoil for Mac is sending the image to the iPhone app, basically making a copy of it and sending it over the air.

This copy is probably unauthorized as regard to copyright.

That being said, I'm not saying that it's right, and the question of VNC clients is relevant as well.
Does anyone know if large developers get any sort of special treatment with submissions? It's hard to imagine that they'd make EA or Disney wait 14+ days in between app submissions.
Dealing in paradigms this way is definitely a higher skill. Creating this much vocabulary, with this much subtlety is very difficult. You are automatically eliminating random access. All this vocabulary is a huge overhead, you need to make it worthwhile.

Compare this to what someone like Seth Godin (who, I actually like). He creates one word per book.

If you are writing books or blogs or other things that people read by choice, you are very limited in how much you can do here. It's like adding equations to a pop-science book. Formal courses (EG at universities) can force you to understand new vocab (or equations) and build on that knowledge. The problem is that this means they don't need to be sparing.

Venkat doesn't have that kind of privilege. The only way he can make you do hard things is by making it pay.

Worth a careful read is one hell of a compliment.
"Middle men exist to reduce the cost of getting a product from A to B"

This isn't the whole story. Good middle men also add value in any number of ways (editorialising, structuring relationships, adding trust).

Disintermediation isn't always the answer. Becoming a better middle man sometimes is.
There is also this:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Smooth_infinitesimal_analysis

It uses intuitionistic logic, so no axiom of choice.
Yes. Plus, you can install any application without using the Store at all.
Ask HN: Developer workstation setup to promote startup culture?
We’re a new startup, about to bring developers on the payroll and have them work out of our new office space.

I’m interested to hear HN’ers views on how best to set up developer’s workstations to promote both the startup mentality we want and also for good productivity. Based on my years as a developer at both startups and BigCo’s (and now I’m the co-founder), my proposal is:

Developer is provided a brand new iMac and a second Dell screen connected and set 90 degrees in portrait mode (as seen at Pivotal Labs, and others). Dell screen for writing code and the iMac screen for seeing results in the browser (we’re a web app)

We want developers to work almost all of the time in the office at the early stage of the company so collaboration between the team can occur. This is the thought behind issueing iMacs over laptops. We also want to create a culture where the work iMac is for dev and you can bring your own laptop in and hook it to our network for your own stuff (email checking, IM’ing, checking your bank online, etc).

I would be interested to hear other’s views on laptop vs fixed computer to encourage work to take place in the office, and also the idea of being strict on having work dev machines ‘clean’ of personal apps and use by encouraging the developer to use their own equipment for personal use during work.

Thanks
I'm pleased to note that a lot of people have realized that taking part in the iPhone (and other locked down mobile devices) ecosystem is sharecropping. Obviously, the landowners have a strong desire to stick with the sharecropper model...I've just never understood why developers are voluntarily going there, when there are so many other ways to spend ones time and effort that don't involve begging Apple for scraps.
Hiring two people so you can fire one is a lot more expensive than interviewing 10 to start.
I hate to be rude, but...you don't do that. you really need to rethink the balance between original and commercial content, not to mention your linking and so on. you list 6 or 7 hotels, but only provide a link to one of them, for example. Some really simple (and ethical) SEO would increase the value of your site a lot more than your current policy of buying ads in order to show (mostly) ads.
Thanks for finding this. I think the issue is that this doc is for the Mac API. So it's fine to show these images on the application running on the Mac but that's it, not on the iPhone app. (at least, I imagine that's Apple's point)
"Eventually, all apps will be web apps"

I keep hearing this, especially from the Cappuccino guys, and it strikes me as a bit of a stretch. For it to be true, HTML/JS/CSS would have to stretch dramatically to accommodate all the functionality of existing OS frameworks, except they'll also have to be platform independent. Even if this happens, it'll be yet another layer on top of the current stacks, but will have to perform as well as software written for the layer below.

It might be plausible, but I don't think it's a given. "The web" has barely gotten around to doing roundrects easily, let alone have the abilities to allow you to implement something like InDesign, Maya or Cubase using its technologies.

"Some apps"? Sure. "Most apps"? I can even see that -- consumer apps and basic business apps the web can do really well. But "all apps"? [citation required].
Coining the term 'Google mafia'?
This criticism applies to Facebook as much as it does to Apple. Facebook apps, though usually built with more web technologies, still live in a walled garden and require permission to operate.

"We're at a critical juncture in the evolution of software."

That's been true for the last 20 years. The software ecosystem evolves to meet users' needs; the walled gardens have their place and the free-for-all areas have theirs.
Emailing people you meet on http://omegle.com
Here's how you can lower your overhead on postage:

Flip the sender and recipient addresses around and don't place a stamp on it. The mailman has to send it back to the sender, who, in this case is actually the recipient, because of the missing postage. HA!
I'm aware of this; The mailinator guy Paul Tyma talked about this in his blog (http://paultyma.blogspot.com/2006/06/im-getting-sick-of-subp...).
I was wondering about that yesterday when chatting in the Facebook iPhone app. I remember that there was a story about an app being rejected being the chat bubbles used in it looked too similar to the ones existing in the SMS/MMS app from Apple (basically the iChat look).

However, the bubbles used by the Facebook app are exactly the same as the one in SMS/iChat.

Maybe it passed through the review process by mistake, but you have to wonder…
Whistle-blowers and others who want to leak info to journalists/investigators without revealing their identity right away.

You should include a form that allows a user to notify a person of their maskur address via SMS ...

"I have important info regarding insider trading at YAHOOGLE, please email me at yahoogle-leak@maskur.com"
This is a good use case; if only I can partner with omegle's owner.
There was a great article about this very topic two weeks ago: http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=912141
A disposable email address would do the job. Also, a source might want to know who they're dealing with.
The abstract makes it clear they argue "no":

We argue that computation via quantum mechanical processes is irrelevant to explaining how brains
produce thought, contrary to the ongoing speculations of many theorists. First, quantum effects do not
have the temporal properties required for neural information processing. Second, there are substantial
physical obstacles to any organic instantiation of quantum computation. Third, there is no psychological
evidence that such mental phenomena as consciousness and mathematical thinking require explanation
via quantum theory. We conclude that understanding brain function is unlikely to require quantum computation
or similar mechanisms.
"Does Rogue Amoeba use these images to reflect specific elements of the Mac OS X environment? I guess so."

I would agree they do, but them they don't do it in the Mac OS X environment but using it on the iphone... (Apple managed to create such a seamless integration of the environments that even seasoned developers are getting confused)

It feels very silly to argue about user experience matters like they were laws - but that seems to be where those lawyers are getting us :(

What if they took (or bought) a photograph of an imac etc. by themselves (maybe remove the apple logo as is normally done in stock photography in order not to infringe on trademarks) wouldn't that have been the most customer serving move on RA's part?
Companies respond to lots of printed letters. One letter with a thousand [forged] names on it is no different than one letter: the return address gets a coupon for a free coffee.
How would one go about using a webapp without a browser?
I half remembered that post, thank you for the direct link.

If you where in my position now - what would you do?
From Javascript To Haskell
Ask HN: How do you decide where to direct your charitable giving?
Or, what makes a charitable project or organization attractive to you? As the holiday season approaches in the US, many individuals and companies step up their giving. For both individuals and companies, what determines how much you'll give and where it will go? How did you discover the organizations to which you currently give? Are you satisfied with how your donations have been used?

For background, I run a tech-focused community organization, and I'm trying to figure out ways to improve our donation revenue this season as we work towards financial self-sustainability. The name's not important here, but you can email me for more info.
This is a great effort. But it is also ineffective.

I am a lawyer. I am also a software guy. But I'll be the first to say that this is WAY too technical of an explanation for 99% of lawyers to follow, let alone be persuaded.

It reads like notes from an Intro to Algorithms class, rather than as a magazine article. It is not written in the form that lawyers are used to. It appeals solely to pure logic (logos) and not at all to emotion (pathos).

Lists like "1. A synthetic language with a defined syntax; 2. An explicit list of logical inference rules; 3. An explicit list of axioms" will just scare lawyers away.

If you want to convince lawyers, you have to speak their (often strange) language. This document does not do so.
http://odesk.com
Google, Murdoch, Madoff
This sounds like a good way for people who use online services and games to collaborate without the downsides of exposing "real" email addresses (which seemingly inevitably find their way to spammers, search engines, etc).

It could be particularly useful for celebrities, public figures, political protesters, parents, teenagers or anyone who might be otherwise embarrassed (or worse) should their email logs be revealed to an inappropriate social group or the general public.
If I may interject, I think in most cases it's much, much better to use a network of connections rather than random walk-ins. You're much more likely to get someone that not only performs well, but also fits in well with your company's personalities.

It is possible that this person is being interviewed by Google as a result of a referral by another employee within the Google, or even a referral from the hiring manager themselves.

Unless what you mean is that a hiring manager only consider people whom he and every other potential interviewer already know before the interview process even begins. The odds of ending up with such an arrangement at a place the size of Google, or even a place 1/100th the size of Google, seem insanely remote.

Someone on an interview loop at a large organization is bound to not know you from every other candidate who walks in the door. Even with phone interviews, odds are they call people based on factors entirely other than "do they know this person?" The best he may know about you is that some other person in the organization referred you, but it is not obvious whether they'll appreciate knowing this or be pissed off that their objectivity is now screwed. Some interviewers really prize trying to be as objective as possible in interviews, because interviews have a habit of being horribly imprecise anyway. But then, so do referral from J. Random Employee ("I have this cousin who's really good with computers; he helped me setup Outlook and everything. We should hire him a as software engineer.")

But then, maybe that is your point. If a company ends up at a size where they can't rely on connections, they're too big already.
Nice Guys Finish First
If the author doesn't understand it, then the newspaper industry probably understands it even less. Understand this for what it is: a propaganda war, intended to appeal to those "left behind" by the march of the internet.
Curtis "50 Cent" Jackson on Business: Make Everything Your Own
Same here - I raced boats for years and knew that waterline legth was proportional to speed, but never why.
This is just the start of an interesting conversation so don't just read the one posting. Read the entire thread.
The ultimate power in life is to be completely self-reliant, completely yourself.

That's terrible advice for me. I suck at working with others and trusting others and have a tendency to try and do everything myself. Problem is, in short term you can get more done quickly but in longterm doing everything alone does not scale. It's hurt me many times and something I've proactively worked to improve in the past year(with good results).

I'm sure there must be others on the other end of the spectrum who'll find this advice more helpful.

All said, I have tremendous respect for 50 cent. He's got an incredibly sharp business mind. Just look at how much he made off of Vitamin Water.
This article is full of words, but he doesn't really get to the point.

What I got out of it: stop dealing with your money passively and take control; reduce your expenses; act like you're super poor; and never stop thinking of ways to save. Note: I am a starving college student, so maybe it's just me.
YouTube to support 1080p HD Video
probably a good way to end up in jail
Just curious, who is hosting this?

Also, lots if good feedback given by others but I especially liked using your service to send invoices, etc. So here's my suggestion, create a developer API and other web applications can use your service to send out snail mail.
Speed of critical thinking for simple questions like the $0.10 ad-click question probably is important. If someone can't figure out the answer to that one pretty fast, they're probably not going to successfully figure out really hard problems at all.
I'm getting very fond of Mr Rao. I had some (mild) economic good fortune recently and to my great surprise, after a protracted period of being broke it made me uncomfortable because it was simply too big to handle. My entire attitude about how to spend it and use it has changed - as he says, largely because I've never had to make these sort of decisions before.

So this thinking tool has come along at just the right time for me. Do HNers have any other suggestions for ways to think about using capital?
No But I would love to test. I think there is a need for something lightweight depending on what you think the primary need of an OS is.
At the last place I worked at with this sort of environment, I found the thing which increased my productivity the most turned out to be the several open wireless access points which were purposely setup outside the company's internal network.
Designer Duo Create Dress With 24,000 LEDs
So viel Spass und Lust im Spa for Men
really?

http://dilbert.com/blog/entry/hunter_becomes_the_prey/
Add your profile, complete with ratings and reviews, to your listings
> HTML/JS/CSS would have to stretch dramatically to accommodate all the functionality of existing OS frameworks

Yes, that's my point, and I think a major point of the article. It's getting there, but very very slowly. The main reason for that is the required consensus of the various browser vendors. There is nothing inherent to the web model (apps built with HTML/CSS/js and distributed by visiting web URLs) that makes it impossible to do everything you can do with "native" UI framework X.

> let alone have the abilities to allow you to implement something like InDesign, Maya or Cubase using its technologies.

The UIs for those apps could easily be implemented using web technologies. The number crunching would require an extension to our current set of web technologies, like Google's native client. JavaScript implementations have come a long way in recent years, but not that long. ;-)

Still, the point is not that all apps can currently be written using web technologies. The point is that it's theoretically possible and that the world is moving in that direction. Sure, there are barriers to overcome. So, let's overcome those. It's not impossible. It's not even that difficult.
After Hours Blow Out
He's on reddit and fairly active, you could probably message him over there:

http://www.reddit.com/user/eurleif
If all apps are written in HTML/CSS/js, why would your OS have 1 "native" app that runs all other apps? The OS would just run web apps directly. The OS's UI itself would be written in web technologies. Maybe Chrome OS will do this. Given the short period of time they've been working on it, I doubt it, but I can hope.

See http://shoptalkapp.com/blog/2009/10/15/the-real-web-os
I believe there are sites that reiew overhead. That's a first big one...

I donate to things are non-denomniational, but of my religious background. That's a personal choice. They tend to be a top on my list.

Assoicated with children is anohter big one. However it really had to make an impact.

Also I tend to want to give where there is impact where I live. And I can go check in. It is nice to not only make a monetary impact, and also a physical impact.

Also, I was brought up that charity should long term get the person off charity. Teach a man to fish. The charity might end up self-destructing, but that's ok. People get up and fall down, and the point of charity is the helping of the getting up.

Personal views, of course.
My HTC Touch Pro2 (Windows Mobile) has that resolution. Verizon has already had a couple released 800x480 screens that run their BREW platform (LG EnV Touch). All are usable but none have the iPhone's hardware graphics acceleration. Kind of a shame, too.

EDIT: I should also mention that it cost me about $200 with renewal
No axiom of choice, but most working mathematicians reject constructivism.

Plus there are some pretty big differences. Do you really want to explain to students why you don't consider f(x) = 1 if x >= 1 and 0 otherwise to be a valid definition of a function? And (in some ways more importantly) why most of the rest of the world does? Furthermore the intermediate value theorem is pretty useful and I wouldn't want to lose it.