jkeisling/hacker-news-corpus-2007-2022 huggingface dataset:
Japanese Math Professor Excellent on Optical Illusionist
http://youtu.be/Wx4yi5m8IfI
Japanese mathematics professor Kokichi Sugihara spends much of his time in a world where up is down and three dimensions are really only two. Professor Sugihara is one of the world's leading exponents of optical illusion, a mathematical art-form that he says could have application in the real world.

Three sloped ramps are aligned along three of the four sides of a square. Each ramp appears to be sloped in the same direction but when a marble is placed at one end of the ramp it seems to defy gravity.

It's called an "anti-gravity slide". Only when the the entire structure is turned 180 degrees, is the illusion revealed.

Japanese mathematics professor Kokichi Sugihara from the Meiji Institute near Tokyo, has made a career of creating optical illusions. He's devised and built more than a hundred of them, like this one called "Perches and a Ring".

[Kokichi Sugihara, Meiji University Professor]:
"Among these models, there are those which are reproductions of optical illusions, and others that seem like normal models, but when you add movement to them, they show movement that should be impossible in real life. This is done by using the same trick, and I call them 'impossible motions'."

Professor Sugihara's "impossible motions" have been recognized around the world. He won first prize in an international competition last year with this one, called "Magnet-Like Slopes".

Sugihara says the success of his illusions is tied to human perception. Because humans have the capacity to perceive two-dimensional objects as being three-dimensional, they can be fooled into believing that something "impossible" is taking place during the course of the illusion.

For Sugiraha the illusions aren't just for amusement. He says they have real world application. For example, he says misjudgments made by drivers on steeply curved roads could be mitigated by changing their perceptions of the immediate environment.

[Kokichi Sugihara, Meiji University Professor]:
"If we can find how drivers misjudge an incline, we would be able to construct roads where these incidents are less likely to happen. In other cases, we could also reorganize the surrounding environment so that drivers could more easily see the difference between an ascending and descending road, and it could lead to reducing traffic jams."

Sugihara says says his dream is to create playground amusements - even buildings with his models. More immediately though he has plans for an "impossible object exhibition", a venue to demonstrate that seeing really is believing.
Ask HN: Just found a patent covering my project, anything I can do?
I've been working on a sensor system that solved a problem we had at school. I designed the hardware, wrote the firmware, and am now building a small webapp for handling the incoming data. It seems to solve other people's problems too so there was some interest in developing a business around the idea. Recently I found out the concept of the sensor system is covered by a rather broad patent held by a large company. They received the patent about a year ago.

Can anyone here comment on my options in this situation? Am I looking at legal problems if I start a business around this idea? What if I open source my work, would that matter? Could I develop the systems as a contractor? Could I sell kits? Thanks for any help.
Show HN: Play against well-known chess players' openings
https://d2frm2q2a7fq8v.cloudfront.net/
Hi, this is my first HN submission so please forgive the rough edges.

For this project gathered chess positions from some well-known chess players with a lot of games. (Usually ~25k games and 1M+ positions. The most for any player was GM Aman Hambleton with 1.8M positions indexed.)

With each board position I create a probability distribution of moves the player has made from that position. Then, I simply draw from that distribution (with sampling temperature) to choose a move. As long as there's at least one game with a given position, you can keep playing.

You'll see that it's pretty easy to get "out of book", where you've reached a novel position. It is possible to indirectly model a player's behavior throughout the game, so we can guess what moves a player might make in that position. But that's a bit more than a weekend project and a bit more involved than a lookup table.
Show HN: Mixed martial arts fan site - CombatPicks.com
http://www.combatpicks.com/
Combat Picks was built to be a fun tool for MMA fans to make predictions/picks on fights. The site was built by two people (1 design - 1 code) over the course of about a month. I don't have any plans for monetization - we really just built the site as MMA fans to be able to provide a fun service to other people.

http://www.combatpicks.com/

We have lots of improvements in the pipeline - i'd love to hear some feedback/ideas on what we can improve.
Show HN: GitStars - A better way to organize your GitHub starred repositories
http://www.gitstars.com/
Just released a simple web tool, GitStars (http://www.gitstars.com) to help make the act of starring repositories on GitHub infinitely more useful.

When you log into GitStars, your starred GitHub repositories are fetched and automatically tagged. You can freely edit the tags and help make the system's auto tagging better for everyone.

In this early version, we were focused on helping you re-discover the repositories that you may have starred and lost track of. You can browse or search the repositories by the tags that were automatically generated.

I would love to hear your comment on whether you find GitStars useful.
IOS Product Strategies - an honest discussion
http://smalldozes.posterous.com/ios-product-strategies-an-honest-discussion
Settling Fat vs. Settling Thin and what that means for your apps on the appStore
On Why I Am Not Gonna Buy Any Smartwatch
http://www.upbeat.it/2014/04/01/on-why-i-am-not-gonna-buy-any-smartwatch/
Why problem does a Smartwatch solve?
Learn how to make demo videos for your startup.
http://grumomedia.com/how-to-create-an-awesome-demo-video/
This guy creates totally funny demo video's for startup type companies. He's actually done a number for graduates of Y Combinator I beleive. He sells an online class to help people create their own videos if they can't afford the $3K-$10K price tag of his work. udemy lists the class for $297. It's on sale for two more days at $115 at the grumo site. Sorry if this is considered spam. It's actually my first posting here so I don't know all the rules. But I love the guy's work. So much so I just bought the class today. It's really valuable to me in launching my start up and I figure there are others who can benefit. He's also as a mixergy.com interview that's great.
Ask HN: Is There a Python/Flask Equivalent to Hartl’s Rail Tutorial?
For both self development and guiding others, I’m looking for something like Hartl’s Rails tutorial (railstutorial_org/book). Doing some research I’m seeing a thousand tutorials which cover some things well, and other wrong. Is there a Python/Flask equivalent to this book which follows a linear path and touches on front-end and back-end, tdd, containerizing, etc? I can’t chart the path I’ve taken but do remember that fundamental course which shaped my early leaning path (t-sql with pencil and paper). Thanks for any help!
Ask HN: Where to procrastinate?
Hi HN,
This may sound weird but I'm a procrastination newbie. I have some spare time to spend but I don't know where to find any quality content. So I go on an endless loop at HN, proggit, StackOverflow, Facebook, Gmail or Wikipedia.

So where do you spend some quality goof-off time?
What happened to the feature requests thread?
http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=363
I was going to ask for a 'hide' button in the wake of the "pg facts" threads.
Crowdsourcing and visualising local noise complaints
http://dontwake.me
I have moved house twice in my life to get away from some type of noise. I can finally let other people know before making the same mistake. Currently only in Australia.
3 books every development manager should read
http://www.codovation.com/2011/09/3-books-for-every-development-manager/
Often, especially when small companies grow, good developers get promoted into leadership or management positions: Scrum Master, Development Team Lead, Development Director, or even CTO. I lately read three different books: Peopleware, Management 3.0, and Growing Software. I want to share this great and powerful introductions to development management with you.
Startup Sales Circle - SF & Silicon Valley
http://www.meetup.com/Startup-Sales-Circle-SF-Silicon-Valley/
We're starting a new monthly meetup for startups that want to discuss sales strategies/tactics, wins/losses and generally help each other sell and compete against bigger companies. We've got a great set of speakers for our first meetup. Please join and spread the word.
Ask HN: Thoughts on idea...
After spending some time looking at different CRM software options, I very much felt that individual freelancers, or even small web design teams, we're largely being left out of the current software offerings. They all, for the most part, seemed to appeal directly to very large businesses in which collaborating and talking to each other was not that easy or aimed specifically at (traveling) salesman who need to maintain a gazillion different contacts/relationships.

It got me thinking about a CRM created largely with the freelancer in mind. Users create a form of sorts to embed on their site, potential clients then fill it out and it's funneled and organized in the app. I think this could be a really great tool, especially for people who get a lot of requests.

I'm mainly wondering if:

1) Do you think this is a good idea or does email suffice in managing new and potential clients?

2) Can you think of any other features to go along with this idea that would also benefit freelancers (besides the obvious ones like invoicing and time tracking as those two spaces are very crowded)?

3) Would you pay for a tool like this?

And also, on that note, what about a workroom of sorts (similar to Elance) where you can pass back and forth all communications?
The Significance Of Patents
http://getventure.typepad.com/markpeterdavis/2007/10/the-significanc.html
When discussing their barriers to entry, many entrepreneurs cite their pending patents. While obtaining patents is worthwhile, many IT focused VCs do not believe that they alone create sufficient barriers...
ShoutEm launches new iPad builder 
http://thenextweb.com/apps/2012/10/19/shoutems-app-builder-launches-ipad-support-lets-you-quickly-make-apps-youll-actually-love-using/
ShoutEm’s app builder launches iPad support, lets you quickly make apps you’ll actually love using
Android Development - A Hello World tutorial from zero to go
http://calmlycoding.com/?p=291
Reddit went Bananas for my Android Hello World tutorial and I was advised to also post it on hacker news. This is the first in a series of planned progressively more complicated Android tutorials.
How the web makes a real life Breaking Bad possible--and legal.
https://medium.com/matter/19f753fb15e0
Designing your own narcotics online isn’t just easy—it can be legal too. How do we know? We did it.
Ask HN: What is the best way of exporting Apple Notes?
- OS: macOS Catalina (10.15.7)

- Notes Version: 4.7
Merry Christmas, everyone
http://xkcd.com/361/?merrychristmas
Try not to bring your laptop to the dinner table.
What is a normal CPM?
According to YOU,

what is a normal CPM for an adSense campaign ?
How to Run Your Startup (and Not Let it Run You)
http://jwheezy.com/2011/03/27/how-to-run-your-startup-and-not-let-it-run-you/
This post is intended to initiate discussion to share best practices and experiences around the importance of building effective business processes and leveraging data to inform decision making for startups.
Show HN: "Call your Mom"
https://github.com/mynnx/callyourmom
I put this together as a node.js-learning project. Did you remember to call your mother today?
Can technology secure organizations against Wikileaks?
http://www.quora.com/Can-technology-secure-organizations-against-Wikileaks
If you think technology can solve your security problems, then you don't understand the problems and you don't understand the technology.

Information Security never had been an issue of better technology. Numerous incidents proved that until today. However, Information Security could be established only with total awareness including policy and tool usage.
Ask HN: Cloud music site where I can stream my own music?
I just got my CR-48 and am very pleased. I know there are a bunch of web apps where I can pay $10/month to stream a very large library of music, but I have a peculiar collection encoded very well and would rather stream my own music. Is there a decent app where I can pay money to upload my music to the cloud?
Ask HN: Where to find remote work?
I'm a 20 something web developer currently living in the middle of nowhere, I've got almost five years of experience over all sorts of different tech, am a fast learner, and I like to think I'm a good communicator. I also do much better work at home or at a coffee shop than I do in an office or a cubicle.

With that said, there's nowhere nearby looking for web developers and I don't have a vehicle even if there were. Whenever I try to find remote work online, the jobs I apply for are either already taken or I just get no response.

I have some debt, I don't have much money saved, and I do like where I live so moving is not really in the cards at the moment. It's gotten to the point that I'd be happy getting paid minimum wage to fix WordPress errors and IE CSS rendering bugs.

There's been a bunch of talk lately about the growth of remote / telecommuting, yet almost every job listing specifies "in house only, no remote." Maybe I'm just not looking in the right places.

Does anyone have any suggestions on the best places to find semi-consistant remote work?
NYU-Poly Incubators Application
http://www.poly.edu/business/incubators/apply
Get ready to super charge your startup!

Polytechnic Institute of New York University (NYU-Poly) is proud to announce that we're now accepting applications for our new DUMBO incubator in Brooklyn. Apply online now at http://www.poly.edu/business/incubators/apply

With sponsorship from Two Trees Management, and the NYC Economic Development Corporation (NYCEDC), the incubator is at the heart of a virtuous circle linking the University with the people at the forefront of New York’s tech community, New York City government and institutions, tech market needs and early-stage capital.

Our mission for this new University and City-sponsored incubator is to support the development of technology startup businesses in Brooklyn that are focused on digital media, educational tech, gaming, mobile tech, and advertising tech. We’re looking for high-growth, high-potential entrepreneurs who are solving real problems for real customers.

Apply if you think your startup is a good match with what we’re looking for.
o We love successful serial entrepreneurs
o Technical co-founders of incubator applicant companies must be on board
o We look for a large and sustained impact and an ability to deliver venture scale returns
o We require a clear go to market strategy and an understanding and implementation of the customer development process

Startups generally have five key needs: talent, services, expertise, customers, and capital. We seek to address these needs through a robust offering that benefits from the legacy of success we’ve built at the Varick Street Incubator and the community we’ve fostered. The DUMBO Incubator is more than an exciting co-working location; it will offer programs and seminars geared to accelerating your venture, discounted professional services, investor exposure, and access to the entrepreneurial university culture, students and faculty at NYU-Poly. Through exposure to mentors, incubator staff, and a world-class community of entrepreneurs, we'll help your startup take flight.

Submit your application now by completing the questions online at http://www.poly.edu/business/incubators/apply

We plan to accept our first companies at DUMBO this month so be sure to get your application in ASAP!
For more info or questions reach us at incubator@poly.edu
Russian spacecraft landed on moon hours before Americans
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/scienceandtechnology/science/space/5737854/Russian-spacecraft-landed-on-moon-hours-before-Americans.html
A previously unheard recording of a Russian spacecraft attempting to beat NASA's Apollo 11 in 1969's race to the moon has been released. The recordings from Jodrell's Lovell radio telescope, which were hidden in archives until researchers found them, show the Russian craft orbited the Moon and crash-landed onto its surface at 15:50 on July 21 – just a few hours before the Americans lifted.
Jonathan Ive allegedly said iWatch will hit Switzerland
http://www.nytimes.com/2014/09/04/fashion/intel-and-opening-ceremony-collaborate-on-mica-a-stylish-tech-bracelet.html?_r=1
According to a designer who works at Apple, Jonathan Ive, Apple’s design chief, in bragging about how cool he thought the iWatch was shaping up to be, gleefully said Switzerland is in trouble — though he chose a much bolder term for “trouble” to express how he thought the watchmaking nation might be in a tough predicament when Apple’s watch comes out.
#1 Design Commandment: Steal from Nature
http://blog.applicake.com/index.php/2012/08/01/1-design-commandment-steal-from-nature/
First out of 7 (Evil) Design Commandments
Ask HN: How to make bookmarks useful.
Here's a concrete example. Particular details are irrelevant and are intentionally absurd:

Say I'm debugging my halting_problem_decider.cc when I get some obscure compiler error. Googling it, I somehow stumble on a site that offers all of Britney Spears's music for download--a true diamond in the rough for a true britney fan (assume I know nothing of bittorrent). I'm absolutely ecstatic, but since my boss wants the halting problem solved by lunchtime, I must restrain myself to bookmarking it for future enjoyment and return to work.

Years later I'm looking for an mp3 version of "you drive me crazy" (still no bittorrent). By then I've forgotten all about the life-changing site I had discovered in my youth. So instead of going directly to it, I'm ignorantly wading through bait-and-switch-type ad-infested sites purporting to have my song for download. Meanwhile the site I need is uselessly taking up space in my bookmarks, never to be used again.

In effect the problem is this: it's not enough to store useful resources if you don't remember to use them. Bookmarks store things, but they don't remind you of the things you've stored (address bar autocomplete is a first-approximation solution to this problem).

Possible solution: Since my go-to place for anything is Google, why not bring my bookmarks to it? That way when I google "you drive me crazy mp3", the site I serendipitously found years ago will float at the top of the search results.
One possible implementation of this could use Google custom search to index personal bookmarks. But this would merely create a separate Google for your bookmarks instead of bringing your bookmarks to /The/ Google.
Another, more promising approach would be to use subscribed links (http://www.google.com/coop/docs/subscribedlinks).

Before I waste a weekend on this only to reinvent the wheel: Anyone seen anything like this? Any suggestions? (and can you help me debug my halting problem solver?!!)
Ask HN: Alternatives to fixed-fee or time-and-materials pricing for s/w dev?
Where can I learn more about pros/cons of various pricing models for software development?
Computer Security: Browser Wars are Back
http://www.economist.com/science/displayStory.cfm?story_id=13395407
From Economist.com

This time the battle is over security rather than features
Ask HN: Selling/licensing a white labelled iPhone app
I have a paid iPhone app which is making me reliable income. There is now an opportunity to sell it as a white label product to someone who will make it available free, with some features removed, and possibly a few additional features. This is primarily a marketing maneuver for the buyer, who will provide the app to its users using their service, which is tied to my app's niche.

Does anyone have experience doing this, or thoughts to share?

I can think of a few points of consideration:

1. Potential loss of income due to it being available free from someone else. The buyer has a bigger presence and can tap into a bigger market.

2. Build vs. buy and alternatives. The buyer may potentially build their own. My app has been in production for 2 years, with battle-tested code. There are possible, existing alternatives to mine, but I do not know if they are probable (i.e. in terms of willingness, interest, price, etc).

3. Legalities. We aren't lawyers, but what are key things to be aware of. Eg. I will be continuing to sell my app. What's stopping them from re-selling it. I prefer a simple license rather than 1 which no one can understand.

4. Time and effort. Other than the obvious time needed for changes to the app's features, what else is required? Eg. what's a reasonable time period for handholding, providing support

5. Ongoing support. What's the practicality of providing an ongoing source update, or should it be a one time transfer of the code snapshot.

6. What are guidelines to figuring out the magic number?
Show HN: I wrote a children's book in 1 day using DALL-E 2
https://drive.google.com/file/d/1ho-pAC_U_TVPLYn_FoPFEJVJHXhsubEe/view?usp=sharing
Like others, I am blown away by DALL-E's ability to accelerate the creative process. With just a single day of concentration and fiddling with the prompt tool, I was able to fully illustrate a book of knock-knock jokes.

After one more day of fiddling with trims and bleeds, I had it published on Amazaon: https://www.amazon.com/Dorky-Dads-Knock-Book-Vegetables/dp/B...

The prompting of DALL-E, like any tool, took a bit of learning. My take-aways using it were:
- The four variations initially generated are rarely enough. The variations can be quite diverse, and a better rendering can often be found just by generating again. After three times (12 variations), the returns get diminishing and it's usually better to either tweak the prompt phrasing, or drill down into the best so-far to get variations of it.
- The ability to select and replace a section allows for a great deal of control. Usually the scene will end up more smoothly connected and related if you try to specify everything in the original prompt. However, where this is not understood properly by DAL-E, selecting an area and then using a new prompt in that sub-region works well.
- DAL-E on occasion renders objects that you don't specify, ruining an illustration that would otherwise be perfect. There's unfortunately no "erase" option, but if you specify "empty" on the prompt it works to clear the object most of the time.

The capabilities are already amazing; it'll be even quicker in helping creativity with a few more tools on top of it, like being able to move objects into position. At any rate, much thanks to the OpenAI team for what I've already been able to do!
Ask HN: The current state of DotNet Web development
Hey Guys,

I've been out of DotNet development for a few years (was pretty experienced with 2.0). What are people's current favourite frameworks / approaches for DN development these days. Definitely keen to hear about what people are doing in the land of alt.net as things were starting to get pretty useful even back in the 2.0 days.

BTW, I'm not looking for 'best practice' as I actually don't think such a thing exists, and when people say things like 'best practice approach' I break out in a nasty rash ;)

Nice to have features would be RESTful support and having simple lightweight JSON serialization would be a plus. If the best option is just vanilla DN MVC then I'll go and check it out, but I was interested to hear about alternative options before I start deeper investigation...

Thanks in advance for any suggestions :)

Cheers,
Damon.