skysight-inc/HackerNews huggingface dataset:
Oh yeah, the BASIC on those TI calcs!

I spent every calculus class working on various things. My proudest accomplishment was a blackjack game. I implemented drawing routines for every card type, which was really painful given the graphics primitives you had available. So much Line(..) and PxOn(..).

Distribution mechanism was hooking up that cable to your classmates' TI-XX. Maybe iPhone devs should try that.
Go for an HP graphing calculator, then. ARM processor, SD slot, far more powerful programming tools, especially the built-in ones. TI's have BASIC on the calculator, but HPs have an interpreted language, a compiled systems programming language, and an assembler and disassembler all in ROM. And you can run a C cross-compiler on your laptop.

It's nowhere near as powerful as a PDA, but it has a great keyboard (for math, at least) and runs off AAs.
> Or, more likely, prices would get so low every foreign corporation would buy huge amounts of mineral to stock

That didn't happen with oil production was unregulated, so why would it happen now?

> Furthermore, as it is the standard of value, gold's regulation is at least reasonable. If you didn't regulate it, inflation would artificially rise worldwide.

The above implies that gold prices are regulated. Please cite the relevant regulation. (Gold prices are regulated in some countries. If the regulated price is lower than the world price, those countries don't have any gold.)

Yes, gold production is regulated and constrained in many places, but the above claim is different.
I feel the same way; but I suspect people in different parts of the world might think differently.

E.g., in my experience, some people have been very vocally opposed to the idea of leaving computers on overnight owing to the energy wastage etc. They were all from Europe, and from precisely the same types of environments where we would usually leave our machines on permanently (eg postgrad university labs).

Not to generalize, but I wonder if (at least at that time) there was not more sensitivity to such environmental issues in Europe.

Unfortunately (at least on PCs) the suspend-resume functionality just has never seemed to work properly ...
I have a working browser plugin that allows justin.tv to access and respond to the Apple Remote Control. I should really find time to get it polished and released...

NPAPI plugins are actually pretty good fun to write.
I think A/B testing would be unhelpful or even counterproductive because of the difficulty of picking a measurement to maximize. You want a flattering but reasonably accurate advertisement for yourself, which doesn't correlate with any easily gatherable metric. If you try to maximize clicks or emails, you run the risk of making your profile marginally more attractive to lots of people you aren't interested in at the cost of looking generic and boring to the few people you are interested in. You could reduce this effect by maximizing the percentage of profile views that result in emails, but it would still be distorted by people who mistake you for someone entirely different. If you maximize emails from interesting prospects, which is what you really want, it will take a long time to accumulate a useful amount of data.
I developed this trick independently while working at MetaCreations in the late 1990's. I wrote it up in an article in 2001. I doubt this is where the Quake guys got it, because the magic number is slightly different, but it's the same basic idea.

http://stereopsis.com/computermath101/

-Ben
Have you considered a remote development server?
Powerful laptop with a large external display for myself. I commute into NYC every day though, and I've solved some of my most mind boggling problems on the train.
Some pretty hillarious comments going on at Reddit:
http://www.reddit.com/r/programming/comments/a65ql/php_531_r...

Here's the "Frozen" page:
http://www.freezepage.com/1258664860QXBBMRAPHX

Apparently the error got through and was fixed quickly, but the mirroring process is what lagged:
http://twitter.com/rasmus/statuses/5868415824
A Taste of Ramsey Theory
The pricing is great!
Hmm, I clearly need to simplify the explanation.

Affiliate Script is designed for people who want to sell products through Amazon.com. Affiliate Script is intended to make it easy for people to design Amazon product ads and put them on their blog or website.

If a person clicks on the Amazon product ad and buys it then the website owner gets paid a commission.

This is scary. What is happening to the money?

If the person isn't a signed up member they can make ad widgets and put them on their blog or website but they won't make any money from it. In essence the money is wasted.

I'll have to rewrite that to make it simpler.

Thanks for the feedback.
For me, it doesn't matter if it's a laptop or desktop, it's all about the keyboard.
I treat my laptop like I treat my phone -- always on but it spends most of its time asleep. Only reboot in case of OS upgrade or system failure. I don't really get why people don't do it this way... just close the lid.
Examining the use of language by modeling them with Game Theory may provide some interesting insights to what makes legal writing so unique.

Natural language, in a normal context, is (usually) co-operative, to the extent that the speaker and the listener both have the common goal that the listener understands what the speaker is saying. This is what gives natural language a higher tolerance for ambiguity, as the listener will be using generally amenable heuristics to discover meaning.

A programming language involves a human communicating with a generally imbecilic partner. This is like a game against a deterministic opponent, or even a single-player game, trying to optimize expression under the constraints of the language. This is what gives programming its literalness. Language designers try to solve the dual problem by designing the constraints. Arguably, the goal of a well-designed language is for the expression-under-contraints to approach the cooperative communication of natural language.

Legal writing is best modeled as a game against an adversarial opponent, which is actually not far from the truth. In a sense, it's also dual to language design, in that the goal is to design constraints that limit the expressive ability of an adversary.

While this is not explicitly mentioned in the OP, it's worth pointing out that bureaucratic writing is slightly different than legal writing, although it has a similar eliminate) the need for the judgement or ad-hoc decision-making of the individual contributors to the system, by spelling out the results of all possible decisions beforehand. This system may best be modeled as imagining an imbecilic adversarial opponent, rather than a powerful one, making it share the worst qualities of both legal contracts and FORTRAN.
Chrome OS: What we know and don't know
Okay fair enough. However one spelling nazi nitpick:

When people confuse lose with loose I want to grab the booze and noose.
Usually a laptop. Linux netbook when traveling.
This was initially a short email in reply to a question I was asked recently. I then wrote a slightly longer version as a web page and pointed the individual at it.

I always intended to add diagrams, but I think it's better without. With diagrams, you will follow my explanation, but you might not work at understanding. Without diagrams, you have to do the visualisation yourself, and I think that helps the understanding. It takes more work, but if you really want to understand this, you have to do the work.

You may disagree - I'd love to hear your take on it.
They can buy a $35million supercomputer, then whinge about $30,000 to dispose of it?

There's something weird that happens when large amounts of cash are involved. It seems to suddenly stop mattering about whether it's a million dollars too much or too little.

I wonder if it's like the colour of the bike shed problem? There are so many details ... surely someone else has checked them. But oh - $200 for a set of door stops, is that right? Oh we need 200 of them? OK. Whole quote seems fine.

I speculate that if Cray had included $250,000 in the original sale price to cover disposal at end of life, with a suitably impressive name, they wouldn't have questioned itand then years later would be praising Cray for removing it "for free".
I doubt anything is really going to happen. This is a typical "anonymous source" article. Low-quality newspapers have been using those for a while to create a controversy where none exists. When the plans don't happen, they can claim "well, we called it and thereby averted it", or - if that's too obvious - that they misjudged their source.
I've got a macbook on my desk, and a massive linux box under it, which I shell into to do all my work. So the mac is essentially a (very smart) dumb terminal. Best of both worlds, I'd say. Plus the desktop makes for a great ottoman.
Http://News.YCombinator.com/x?fnid=93RYiGSKgD
Another idea would be to compile this code on the server side as part of the build process. Then we don't care how fast the browsers are: they only see pure JavaScript. This brings up an interesting point: when doing C optimizations a pretty typical thing to do is to unroll loops and inline functions. Would this help any with JavaScript, given that loading time is fairly expensive compared to a local binary executable? Would be interesting to test this.
Thx! Well, it's not my first language and not even second :)
This is a great article, truly enjoy it.

In my own experience, I have learned that there are two kinds of decisions in startups. Any CEO who is capable of trusting his/her own instinct tends to make the right life-and-death decision, which is like avoiding a car accident that never happens.

Decisions that are not life-and-death are much more difficult to make and are in fact more important to the success of startups. What I have learned is that the key is not in making the “right” decision but making any decision right.

As technologists, we prefer to make the “perfect” decision, which means that we would have to have “perfect” data. Typically, in a startup, there are two ways to compensate for the lack of perfect data. One is to wait for more data and one is to seek consensus.

CEO who procrastinates hoping to get incremental data is as deadly as a CEO who jumps to the wrong conclusion before enough data is in. Similarly, a CEO who is afraid to make tough and unpopular decision and hides behind the shield of consensus will almost always lead a startup to the proverbial cliff.

I highly recommend this article ... JFDI
We probably have a different view on what is a killer app. From my perspective: Windows - Outlook Express, IE. OS X - Mail, Safari. I can't recall the last time I fired up "Photoshop, Excel, Quicken, Final Cut" and I bet 90% of randomly selected users couldn't either.
Technically a laptop, but I never develop without an external monitor and keyboard.
Right now all netbooks sold out there have a camera and it is mostly used for video calls with Skype. I don't think netbook manufacturers would give such a major feature up.

I see Google has videochat in GMail with a browser add-on, perhaps it will come pre-installed with Chrome OS but it would still have little installed base.
Nice. I think I would be my own biggest customer, however.
Passion as a Competitive Advantage
As far as a handheld development machine, the Pandora comes to mind: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pandora_(console)

Looks pretty powerful, roughly the size of a Nintendo DS. Of course, it won't replace a laptop... the keyboard size alone.

But if I could sync code between the Pandora and my laptop and compile stuff on-the-go. The Pandora could function like notepad for writers... but for programmers.

Its usefulness in developing for windows applications would be very limited, however.
The worst? Data Loss, or corruption, which is worse than "not working".

Likewise, more likely it could just not work well, be buggy and require several updates to get it right, burning out your team's (or your company's) image with the customer. Before you deployed your fix, it's whoever changed the protocol at fault. After that, it's you that can't fix it.

Again, not justifing it taking ages, just saying there's never an excuse to skip QA.
I'm surprised that people would be so dismissive of this. Good design should obviously result in something usable, but there's nothing wrong with presenting it in such a way so as to take advantage of the medium.

The best way to present information is not always text on plain background. This should be obvious for anybody who has had to visualize data to make it understandable. The blogazine idea carries data visualization forward from quantitative to something more qualitative.
I tweeted just today that GitHub was the coolest thing out in the past <some unspecified bit of time>.
wow.. that laptops are winning 2-1 is amazing. that's insane.
You'd probably just have to reconfigure the kernel to load the drivers you'd require. I haven't looked through the code yet myself, but it shouldn't be too difficult.
Most of the time I only need SSH into a server to do any dev. I have the idea that an iPhone attached to an external screen (via its dock -- there seems to be a cable for that) and a Bluetooth keyboard will probably be cool.
Can I quote you? :)
In my experience PHP is a lot like ASP. It is easy to get started in, so attracts a lot of entry-level developers who produce a lot of entry-level code, and nothing about the platform particularly encourages good practices.
I like Joel's ideas as a long-term business strategy, but it seems like it would require a lot of initial capital and would be impossible to pitch to a VC. Unless you're made of money, those two drawbacks don't go together well. What's a sound business strategy for getting a "Coder's Heaven" off the ground?
I'm almost willing to cut them some slack on that point since this is a bugfix release (it might just be the function that lists the bugs fixed). But I'd rather focus on the comedy :)
I develop on my MacBook tethered to 24" screen, working in interpeted languages so compilation power is not an issue. Last time I had desktop as primary machine was back in 2003.
Like the potential of linking voice to social network and games. In spirit of full disclosure - work with the company and it would be great to hear comments about the potential of opening up the potential of voice in games with an open client at a great price point - free.
I keep a screen open on a Slicehost server and do all my development there. Even if I visit a friend and don't bring my laptop I'd download PuTTY and feel at home.
Bands see Web as friend and foe in quest to make it big
Property rights and Net Neutrality
I carry a n800 everywhere. I got it two years ago - I had various PalmOS products ("instant on") before that. What blew my mind when I got it is that the n800 is always on, and there is no reason to turn it off.

* When I walk in the door at home, it automatically connects to my wireless access point.

* I can ssh into it or scp files to or from it using my laptop (after unsuspending the laptop and waiting for it to get back into X :-O) regardless of where it is physically.

* I use rsnapshot nightly to back it up.

* I tap on the screen and it is "instant on" because it was already on, just the backlight was off.

In short, I never turn it on, I never plug it in (other than to recharge :-()

That is the way Life Should Be (other than needing recharging).

Most people don't realize What Could Be because their computer usage paradigm (imagination) is limited by what Windows + Intel is able to do.
Digital Breakfast Blog Launched
Yeah, but it's Paul's point that it's the developer's opinions that matter, hyperbole or not. Microsoft didn't get into the business of operating systems until Apple kicked them off of theirs. If Apple makes it too hard for developers to write software for them, developers will go to the next best thing, even if it's DOS.
Christ, what an asshole. Would it really have been that difficult to sit down at a keyboard and reply in the form 'Dear Mr Devor, [thank you for your letter] [here are the reasons for our trademark policy] [possible compromise] Sincerely, Steve Jobs'.

Don't want to to do it? Send it back to the legal department, who will at least address the guy like a human being. If they had told him back in 2003 that they felt he was infringing on their mark, that'd be one thing. But to passively acquiesce for 6 years and then pull th rug out from under him smacks of incompetence, and a one-line dismissal of a sincere attempt at compromise is just arrogant.
IE is the most important app in the world. That's why MS should buy Opera.
I make Mac apps for a living and have, over a few years built up nice relationships with Apple. In spite of only being a small, not US-based, company (11 people now, but only 5 when we won our first Apple Design Award), it was never hard for us to get noticed by Apple, or to get in touch with the people at Apple we needed to talk to at any given point.

Our first app was built using 'unsanctioned' technology, PyObjC (before PyObjC shipped with 10.5); the app would have never seen the light of day on the iPhone, but then again, we would never have built it in PyObjC for the iPhone to begin with. Everyone we've ever met at Apple has been supportive from day one, and we owe a lot to many of those people.

We have not shipped any iPhone apps, so I can't say how I'd like that, but as a Mac app developer I love working with Apple.
I'm not sure that consulting would be a bad way to go. I've seen a few companies that have cut staff only to hire them back as consultants at least part time, sometimes paying more for the person than they were before (minus benefits).

I wouldn't be so quick to say that consultants are the first to get the axe when the economy slows down. However, it is a different existence as there will be a constant turnover on contracts.
They did manage to get it all in one file. That must count for something right?
Conversely, having a horrible train-wreck of an approval process like Apple does clearly doesn't mean you can't have unparalleled success either. So I guess we're back to square one.
I've seen lots of software that's gone through QA but didn't work. Ever use Microsoft Windows?

QA is important, but determining how many spaces a line of code is indented is not QA. That is a code review, which is important, but not critical. There should be automated acceptance tests, so that new releases can be shipped immediately. (It's also worth noting that stuff like indenting, naming conventions, etc. can be automatically checked at checkin time. See Perl::Critic, for example.)

If there is some feature or corner case that the users test but isn't in the acceptance test suite... well... yeah, the software is going to be unreliable. So don't do that. Write a test.

(I worked somewhere with a QA department once. They didn't like it when the programmers wrote tests, because they felt their job would be threatened. It was true, so we were asked to only write unit tests; no "integration" or "acceptance" tests. I quit a few weeks later.)
"Google and Apple. If Microsoft was the Empire, they were the Rebel Alliance."

I always think of them more in terms of Animal Farm. Microsoft was Mr Jones, Google and Apple are Snowball and Napoleon.
Nothing. It's BSD licensed.
You didn't post an investment thesis, direction, or field. Just looking for engineers that think they are good, apparently. (One never sees investors who ask for people who iterate slowly and hate shipping.)

I find it slightly odd that you specify people who aren't just looking for any money, and then announce "Who needs some money?"

I suspect you are going to see a great deal of adverse selection with this strategy.
I'd add to that that it's probably best that Apple catch malware before it enters the app store, not after.
> Could anyone make a device that you'd carry around in your pocket like a phone, and yet would also work as a development machine?

I can answer this one: there are already a few people who are interested in Hecl for this reason: they want to use it to write code on the phone. That was never my intent with the system, as it seems painful to me, but if there are already a few using my little language, which is not well publicized, there must be a bunch more out there. And if people are doing that with existing phones, I think things will only get better in the future.
This is why some of us use bookmarklets like readability http://lab.arc90.com/experiments/readability/ to get rid of the visualization crap so that we can concentrate on the things that matters most: Content
Actually, I think it's a positive thing to the user, since it encourages incremental development. Anything that incentivizes "release fast and iterate often" incentivizes good development.

On the other hand, it did tend to swamp the review process.
Good name. I knew exactly what I was going to find at the other end of the link.
The Balance of Screening Tests
I think you should probably tailor the post a little bit more to the HN community. Right now this is the equivalent of you linking to an angel investor's "contact us" page. Interesting, since you are an angel investor, posting on HN, but otherwise a little bit too generic, since most of them have those types of statements.

I dunno maybe expand on what you are looking for in a founder, or what you are looking for in a company. Also focus more on what you can offer, angel money is the same, a dollar from you is the same as a dollar from the next guy, what differs is the advice and the connections you can give.
That's only true some times. Unless the data is mission critical, or you introduce a really major bug, the company in question could be losing customer's and / or significant revenue due to the slow down of the application.

I'm not saying you're wrong, I'm just saying there's no hard rule on this. I've had to push code many many times without any outside testing and while occasionally it's been detrimental (but fixed quick, because I didn't have to go through QA), the large majority of times has been beneficial.

A large and formal QA process can kill a product / project just a quickly as cowboy code.
to be fair, if you aren't good at design then your "same design on every page" design probably isn't very good either.

I really like the way they are presenting information -- there really is a problem on the web of nav-on-the-top-and-left, ads-on-the-right, boring presentation and it's good to see someone trying other things. Having said that, I don't think they got it quite right wrt the scrolling/page-down flow. I'd like to see something like this that was a bit more screen orientated. Their example is more like something I like to see on a tall poster and doesn't fit screen browsing quite right. I don't know what the answer looks like though.
we'll see. sometimes you just have to ship it and see what happens.
I don't think people are being dismissive of the concept of cool visualization but the idea that it will replace typical blogpost (The death of blogpost). I can consume this once in a while - but if they this every single post or frequently I will be quite turned off to read the content.
“My investigation will seek to establish what happened and why the company kept its customers and the state in the dark for so long,” Blumenthal told the Hartford Business Journal. “The company’s failure to safeguard such sensitive information and inform consumers of its loss — leaving them naked to identity theft — may have violated state and federal laws. I will vigorously and aggressively seek damages, penalties and other appropriate remedies, if warranted.”

Excellent. I am glad that this is being taken seriously.
of course you can.