"As you know people, as you learn about things, you realize that these generalizations we have are, virtually to a generalization, false. Well, except for this one, as it turns out. What you think of Oracle, is even truer than you think it is. There has been no entity in human history with less complexity or nuance to it than Oracle. And I gotta say, as someone who has seen that complexity for my entire life, it's very hard to get used to that idea. It's like, 'surely this is more complicated!' but it's like: Wow, this is really simple! This company is very straightforward, in its defense. This company is about one man, his alter-ego, and what he wants to inflict upon humanity -- that's it! ...Ship mediocrity, inflict misery, lie our asses off, screw our customers, and make a whole shitload of money. Yeah... you talk to Oracle, it's like, 'no, we don't fucking make dreams happen -- we make money!' ...You need to think of Larry Ellison the way you think of a lawnmower. You don't anthropomorphize your lawnmower, the lawnmower just mows the lawn, you stick your hand in there and it'll chop it off, the end. You don't think 'oh, the lawnmower hates me' -- lawnmower doesn't give a shit about you, lawnmower can't hate you. Don't anthropomorphize the lawnmower. Don't fall into that trap about Oracle." -- Bryan Cantrill https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-zRN7XLCRhc

On the contrary, please continue. Improve it by adding BonziBuddy and friends. Please please please ruin your already non-existent reputation, Oracle. Help ordinary people who have no idea what Oracle is, connect your name with spam and spyware (and security problems, ofc).

Oh dear, this is what I feared from The People That Brought You StackOverflow: Numbers everywhere. Thousands of tiny icons, all alike.

Stackoverflow seems to me to be a giant case of post hoc ergo propter hoc. "We made a site driven by points and numbers and rules and gamification and it was success, therefore it was the numbers and gamification that did it". No, SO was a success because the tech world was gasping for a forum that wasn't a) mailing lists or b) expertsexchange. That's all. That's why the majority of their non-tech sites have bombed.

If Discourse is a success it will be because phpBB is hideous, not because of any merits shown here. A better model to ape would have been the truly successful community sites -- think the Well, or Metafilter. Flat. UI that gets out the way.

Humans are superb at managing conversations, tracking threads and managing state. It's how forums manage to be so good despite phpBB and the like. Let the humans get on with it. Get out the way.

Judging from the beta (http://try.discourse.org/) it doesn't seem to provide anything new in terms of managing a civilized discourse. The structure of the posts is very similar to regular forums; the only difference being the explicit replies, but they almost do more harm than good in the current implementation (it's just an expandable <blockquote> and doesn't really help me understand the context).

What I want from a "civilized discourse construction kit":

- Build it for a real community and try to make it work within that community.

- Make it possible to close threads, write summary for threads, group threads together, explore a topic. In general: Don't make the threads all about real-time, but rather focus on how they can be useful in the future.

- Bring more structure than linear comments, but less complexity than threaded comments.

- Encourage longer responses.

There was recently a good thread on Reddit about this: http://www.reddit.com/r/programming/comments/171xod/the_joys...

Tesla -- and Elon Musk -- have accomplished a lot with a combination of ingenuity and timing, but their future (and the future of viable electric cars) relies entirely on a single technological advance that's almost completely outside their control: the physics of storage batteries.

In terms of value returned for investment, present storage batteries are almost the single worst modern technology. The storage battery on the Tesla Roadster weighs 990 pounds, stores 56 kWh (about 202 MJ) and discharges in 244 miles (393 km) in normal conditions (vehicle speed and environmental temperature). This is a stellar example of applied science and engineering (it's much better performance than that of similar batteries) but it still represents a big obstacle to wide adoption of electric vehicle technology.

As a seasoned former NASA engineer who struggled with these same issues on spacecraft for years, I offer this advice: young people who are trying to decide what do with their lives should seriously consider a career in battery science and engineering. There is room for huge improvement -- huge.

Hi, app developer here. I hope some of you may like my little app. To prevent too much ranting here are some quick answers to possible questions:

Q: The Hacker News website provides much more functionality than your app.

A: That's right. The app isn't made to replace the Hacker News website. It's made for frequent readers like me who want a quick and friendly-on-the-eye way to access the stories.

Q: I want your app but I don't want to pay for it.

A: No problem, Hacky is open source! Just get a copy of the source on GitHub and build it on your machine.

Q: Why are you then charging money for it in the first place?

A: Personally I like getting my apps via Mac App Store. It means easy updating and restoring. Unfortunately providing an app in the MAS isn't free for the developer as he has to purchase a Developer Certificate from Apple. (Additionally a developer likes to buy a beer from time to time)

Relevant Links:

Website: http://www.hackyapp.com

Mac App Store: https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/hacky/id584949645?ls=1&m...

GitHub: https://github.com/eliaskg/Hacky

Edit: Here, have some Promo Codes:

  NPLEWFH4PT6X
  XNLHAXHPA3FN
  FRAAR3RL797W
  MHLW7MH9EYYP
  KPM36X9KY4EN