skysight-inc/HackerNews huggingface dataset:
Ask HN: Why hasn't anyone done this sort of hack for (intro) textbooks?
(originally submitted for the $9.99 textbook thread, but it's already dead)

I've been tinkering around with the textbook/publishing problem in my head for a while (nothing concrete yet, sorry!) and am thinking of applying to one of the upcoming YC rounds. Might try to do this in the meantime as a pure hack:

Students hate being ripped off by frequent 'new' editions of textbooks, which basically just reorder the text slightly and shuffle the problems. (I'm aware quite a few people download illegal textbook copies, but I find reading on a computer screen difficult.) Why hasn't anyone hacked this system? You could just OCR the textbook editions, have the computer identify similar/identical bits, and create a database of dependencies. Then write a web app to query it.

Someone has the 7th edition and their class uses the 9th? Every time they get an assignment, they can go to the site and type in: "I need to read Chapter 8.2-8.6 and do the end of the chapter problems 7-30, odd. The class uses ____ 9th edition. I have ___ 7th edition."

Then the site shoots back, "OK, you should read pages blank through blank. Below is a list of the 9th edition problems matched to their 7th edition counterparts. It also tells you if there's anything different or new."

I'm sure the textbook industry would hate this and try to do anything to shut it down, so it's probably not a great startup idea. They've already taken rear guard action with clickers and web homework.
AT&T admits NYC/San Fran 3G service sucked
You probably can, if it's just for yourself.

The jailbreaking world has reverse engineered a lot of these internals, like replacing SpringBoard, etc.
Sorry to hear that. It's such a tragedy when someone close to you dies and worse when they take their own life.

I lost someone dear to me to suicide 1 month ago today, it's difficult to come to grips with just how final death really is and all the things you could or would have done if you'd had known.

He's at peace now, remember that as you move forward.
Slashdot panned the iPod back in 2001, too - http://apple.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=01/10/23/1816257...

"No wireless. Less space than a nomad. Lame. "
You extracted the best point made during the Mixergy interview with Seth Goodin, and I'm glad you are expanding around it.

I think however your attempt to separate rumination from production is not valid. Ideas need to start somewhere, but their creation will be much more efficient if one actively attempts to find one than hoping one pops up from a walk in the park. Perhaps the distinction you are trying to making is better demonstrated by comparing research and labor, or as Edison put it, inspiration and perspiration.
Sorry, I still don't understand. Does this assume that all passwords share the same salt, so, not a nonce? Because if each hash has a nonce, I didn't know there was a fast way to brute force a database of those.

(Assuming that the developer isn't using md5, of course, but even then I wouldn't expect it to yield a lot of results very quickly.)
Scientists Make Step Towards Fusion Ignition
Sorry, Apple's not making much money off the App Store nor the iTunes music/video store.

They're a hardware company--that's where they make their money.
It's also worth remembering that people sometimes commit suicide without suffering from any mental illness at all. These people need help too.
The first iPod had the wheel, but it physically rotated. It did have the piezo clicker too though.
I agree here. I wrote a similar post this morning with the same point.

http://rajuv.com/2010/01/28/ipad-is-the-computer-for-rest-of...

"This is a device I can hand it my grand father and he won’t have much trouble using it. Compare this to handing him a laptop and training him about how an OS works, what a drive is, what a file system is, why he needs an anti-virus software etc. Ease of use is the key here. Infact, we have seen this with iPhone already. Every day I see many 2-3 year old having absolutely no problem using the device. That makes a HUGE difference.

In a country like India, there are over 500 million mobile phones. But there are less than 15 Million computers (connected to the internet). Why is this the case? One of the reason is, PCs are complicated to use/learn for non-techies. I think this device can address a broader market as it hides the details from the user."
What's even better is that in the paragraph immediately before that sentence, he talks about downloading a movie for the kids.

That should keep bandwidth usage down.

Better yet- even the highest capacity model won't be storing many movies, so it'll be download each time you want to watch them.
Good luck! Reading this, I feel hopeful and sad for you, but mostly envy at your having had such a wonderful friend in your life. I'm not sure I've had many (any?) friends of that caliber.
Low-Power And RF Design Heighten Signal-Integrity Concerns
Ah I see the 45 minutes was misleading. I didn't mean it because otherwise you could just use a mobile CD player (are these still being made?). Just in general I wouldn't see a point in having a MP3 player, unless I went the same extremely boring route every day for long stretches of time (and not by bicycle).

I suppose the majority of people are commuters, so maybe commuting alone is sufficient to explains the high market penetration of iPods.
Alex's fears remind me of 'real programmers' reactiosn to the Web when it came out. The iPad is the Web made physical.

http://epeus.blogspot.com/2010/01/ipad-is-web-made-physical....
One line musings on Newton II
An Inside Look Into Boxee's Systematic UX Overhaul Process
I'm constantly amazed that Mark Cuban continues to be regarded as relevant...

Not a personal insult to the guy, but his technology commentary is pretty shallow most of the time.
Other idea is to build a network around everyone using a particular book. The popular books out there have thousands of students using them at the same time. There's probably a lot of value of connecting them all together. Notes, answers, questions, etc.
Ask HN: Graduate school admittance concerns
This question might generalize to a few members here and I figured I could extract some good advice from HN, so here's my quandary.

I currently attend a third tier school (George Mason University) which is ranked sixty-somethingth for computer science; I came in as a lethargic high school graduate (choosing computer science almost arbitrarily over English), but quickly became enthusiastic about school after my first few courses.

I'm now a junior and am seriously considering a PhD. I have a pretty good GPA (3.89) with experience as an undergraduate researcher, a teaching assistant, and programmer in the private sector. This convinced me that I had a shot at entrance to some of the more reputable schools (Berkeley, UCLA, Caltech, CMU, etc.) but as I browse the graduate directories of these institutions, I see that the PhD students have undergraduate degrees from the very same prestigious enclave of schools.

After browsing through the top 15 institutions for computer science and seeing a graduate body composed of (MIT|CMU|UIUC|Berkeley) undergraduates, I'm getting pessimistic about my chances of being able to attend a powerhouse school for graduate studies.

Is it true there's a barrier of entry based on pedigree in CS grad schools? If so, is there any way I can circumvent it? If not, any advice on what to do?
How does this help the VCs liquidate?; i.e. if the IPO market got killed in favor of such deals, wouldn't that discourage venture capitalists from making investments?
Nintendo tried to supplant personal computers?
Let's create a decision tree on hunch: "Should I get the iPad?"
I installed DB2 Express-C on my Ubuntu box, and not only did it break itself after one day, it completely broke apt-get. I've never had that experience with any other software on Ubuntu. I tried going through internal channels and no one could point me in the right direction. I doubt that external channels would be anymore responsive.

DB2 deviates from other databases I've used with respect to syntax. Most free information is only from IBM. Compare that to how much information there is about MySQL.

pureXML is not amazingly fast. IIRC, it was orders of magnitude slower than relational queries. I believe development on pureXML was recently canceled.

Occasionally, we run into limitations of MySQL. When that happens, it usually means we're attacking the problem incorrectly. It doesn't mean we need a faster database.

I would be most interested to see examples of startups that use DB2 Express-C; I've not heard of any. When Facebook built one of the largest data systems around with MySQL+memcache and other open source software, it makes you wonder why you need "enterprise" solutions.

EDIT: disclaimer: I used to work as a developer on DB2.
System Z DB2 is written in a completely different language than Express-C. I'm not sure there's even code overlap.
Reminded me of http://www.paulgraham.com/island.html

I thought it was good, and I've had a similar experience.
I hope hunch works the way I think it works? I expect that everybody can add paths or questions to the tree. Except atm I can't quite figure out how.

If that is not how hunch works, my apologies - I have linked to an existing hunch that seems a but biased atm. I thought it would be interesting to see what would make most people buy an iPad.
Seriously, I never knew there were this many technology evangelists. It's practically raining commentary.
What indie game all-stars think about the iPad
How can you write an e-mail and a chat message at the same exact time?
My favorite part "the possibility here to do something pretty special, which is finally getting to do what board games do - a big shared playspace that you interact with in an intuitive way"

Can imagine some really fun chess / monopoly clones with graphics - anybody ever play battle chess back in the day?
If it's through ATT, if it's anything like the iPhone, that's $30 a month, and there's a restriction of < 10MB downloads. It won't be $15 a month.

I do feel sorry for ATT's network, though. Think of the strain that the iPhone put on their network, and now they're accepting a computer!? makes me happy I switched to Verizon.
Actually flagging stories is supposed to be for reporting spam, not for saying that you disapprove of them.
I'd really rather go back to the old way when there were lots of competing national encodings for each language, and the actual users of that language could vote with their web pages/documents for which one they preferred. Instead we have this one overarching encoding whose subparts were fixed for all time by fiat from committees before being put into practical use, and as you might expect, some of those committees really screwed things up.

For example, some fine upstanding gentlemen decided that in Unicode (and GB-18030), Mongolian ᠣ and ᠤ, which are printed/handwritten exactly the same, shall be two "different letters" U+1823 and U+1824, but the different forms of ᠳ are the "same letter" U+1833. (And of course, there's ᡩ U+1869 which looks like what you want for some forms of U+1833, but you're not supposed to use it because it's "only for Xibe").

The closest analogy I can give in English is an encoding which forced you to use different "a" codepoints for the characters in apple vs. fake because of their different pronunciations, while making a single codepoint for "k" and "ck" and "c" (but only sometimes) because they sound the same. If you ever saw an encoding like that, you'd no doubt say to yourself: "WTF? I'm not using this, I'll stick with ASCII/EBCDIC/Morse code, thank you very much".
The Web Way to Learn a Language
Yes and that is a good thing. We'll have our devices for creating as well. It's not taking from us, its adding to everyone else.
I read about this when it happened, and this post was extremely eloquent and thoughtful.

Tom, I'd be happy to join you in whipping some Korean butt come Starcraft 2 launch. Even if you don't take my offer up, know that I'm going to think of Dan when I run my first Zerg rush.

Thank you for sharing this post.
I have had a good experience with eApps.

http://www.eapps.com/
I like the read but.....
I would have liked the author to be more specific about the qualities as a cofounder. A well rounded person compared to
a so-so person is still too vague for me. And as a VC and the reason to not invest in my start-up was due to co-founders I
would like him to say so, not make a vague excuse as he said he did per the article.
Interesting essay. Kind of distracting how every sentence is followed by two spaces, though.

Should listening to music necessarily be considered "consuming"? I go running all the time while listening to instrumentals, and it helps me concentrate.

I too have a significant portion of my epiphanies while running or biking, or just walking away from what I was doing, staring at the ceiling, and thinking it over. Gazing into a computer screen seems to promote the narrowing down of ideas rather than the conception of new ones (if that).

Also, has anyone else found showers extraordinarily easy to concentrate in? I'm not sure what it is (white noise?), but I often find that when I take a shower my stresses fade away and whatever problem I was having folds out with an obvious-in-hindsight solution. (I also take notoriously long showers, for this reason.) I really wish I could replicate this experience somewhere else; the only other time I've had it is occasionally when falling asleep (which also, incidentally, causes me to take much too long to fall asleep — not exactly an ideal combination).
Why The iPad Is Crap Futurism
I Love Walled Gardens, by Rory Marinich
Two best ways of getting into graduate school:

1. Get a professor at your target graduate school to say "admit this guy" (i.e. he wants you to do research under him).

2. Get recommendations by people who are known by professors in the admitting university.
This is nothing new. Vampires established long ago that you can survive off of the blood and life force of other creatures indefinitely.
Is it really that hard to picture people using iPads instead of traditional computers?
The iPhone has a Kindle app. Several of my friends and coworkers have it and read books on it. Given that all iPhone apps are supposed to work on the iPad, I assume this one will.

Amazon almost certainly doesn't care about the hardware market as much as they do about the market for media for e-readers. I'm sure they care about this, but it's not that serious for them as a business.
Ask HN: How do you find designers and animators?
I am in need of someone to do some animations and graphic design for me. Anybody out there do this sort of thing or know of a good way to get it done?
Love it or hate it, the abstraction represented by the iPad is inevitable.
Awww Damn. I hate when I'm the idiot =/
In the end, there aren't really that many differences between them; there is more variation from person to person then there is from subject to subject. Certainly the greatest difference I notice is one of passion; the good artists and the good engineers share a passion for what they do, and it's easy (for me) to talk to passionate people --- polite or no, passion is infectious and soon I don't care a whit about turn-taking or eye contact. The students who lack passion --- who are in engineering for the money or art because it's "easy" are the ones that make small talk.
I do most of my e-mail on my iPhone these days. "Sent from my iPhone" is a great way to justify a quick response.
Joe Hewitt on the iPad
Nice, I definitely enjoyed the read. Same idea for sure. It reminds me of another Mixergy interview with the founder of Twitpic, who said he goes for a drive almost every night to clear his mind.
I'm not sure about this. Computers are versatile things and there is a LOT of specialized software out there. My mom has quilting software that she loves. She'd have to give that up unless the iPad quilting market gets big enough. My Dad has GPS software he uses for fishing. How's that going to work? Both of them print like crazy. My dad doesn't like games except the rare first person shooter.

This MIGHT be Joel Spolsky's 80-20 problem ( http://www.joelonsoftware.com/items/2006/12/09.html ). If you make the 20% of features that everyone wants, you have something that's sufficient for NO ONE.
I doubt it -- the display prevents the platform from accommodating any kind of meaningful application ecosystem. An "open" Kindle would basically be a Palm III with a chiclet keyboard and a bigger/clearer screen. I would have wet my pants for that ten years ago, but who on earth would want one today?

(You wouldn't even get API access to the network connection; Whispernet is only financially viable because the apps on the shipping devices are incapable of consuming any meaningful amount of bandwidth.)
There's a stackexchange blog now
This thread is worthless without pics.
Aw. I can't believe he didn't explicitly mention the e-ink used by the Kindle.
It really, really makes a difference.
There are a million annoying, awkward things about the Kindle. But they're all worth it just due to how dang readable it is. I can use an LCD all day long (and do). But for reading documents/books of some length, linearly, for long periods of time, e-ink is really nice.

(I'm sure i'll eventually have an iPad, or something like it, i just don't compare it to a Kindle.)
I absolutely agree that ideas need to start somewhere, but I think that truly innovative, original ideas won't come directly from consuming something. The same way any web application must process an input in some way to add value to it, for me anyway, I need to process things in order to add value to them.
Terrific, heart-felt piece -- I hope writing and publishing it was therapeutic and helpful on the road to recovery. That road has no end, but the further you get, the closer you are to 'normalcy'.

Knowing how much respect and admiration I had for Dan from the dozen or so interactions I had with him, I can't imagine the impact he had on a life-long friend. I've said it before and I'll say it again: I doubt I'll ever encounter anyone as genuine and charismatic as Dan.

Best of luck to you Tom. Though we've never spoken, Dan held you in the highest regard. My thoughts continue to be with you and everyone else Dan left behind.
I maybe didn't use the most descriptive title for this.
It's basically about how the terms "rockstar" and "ninja" are overused in job descriptions.
I thought the same thing ... perhaps they think the company is a sure-fire acquisition target that will still net them a good return.
Blogs that we read in our Startup
Why carriers didn’t want to allow 3G VoIP before
With the iPhone, you need an iTunes account. I don't know if you can set that up on your iPhone. You can go without ever syncing to your desktop. You might need to sync to the desktop to update the iPhone OS, though.

Of course, since your iPhone/iPod/iTouch data isn't in the cloud, you will need to sync to the desktop to backup. Not sure what happens if you sign up for MobileMe.
Liquid Clock Widget Made using jQuery, CSS, and JavaScript
Here's the Vision of iPad Gaming Greatness Apple Overlooked
This managed to nail all the BS pseudo physics that drives physicists crazy to hear repeated.
'Venture capitalists, though their own success in the run-up to the dotcom boom obviated the need for companies to turn to the public market for massive financing rounds.' through?

it doesn't look like the person reason their own article twice or did any sort of editing :(
Is that a standard, one space after sentences? I haven't been in an English class in a while, and haven't heard someone make that comment before.

For music, good call, I listen to quite a bit of classical while working. If there are lyrics, I'll get distracted and think about those instead.

It's kind of funny, but I often find myself stepping out of the shower and not being able to remember if I had shampooed my hair or not, my mind having been somewhere far off.
Rails 2 & Rails 3 side by side
"Most desirable" may be relative for each individual, but median sale price (or in Apple's case, profit margin) is a pretty good proxy for desirability at large.
The Smashing Book in Review
The Smashing Book has been well praised from within the web design and development community. Smashing Magazine typically releases high quality content but does the book live up to the hype?
Try the arrow keys.
I also lost my friend Sam Roweis: http://samroweis1972-2010.blogspot.com/
Everybody uses them in the gym as well. Working out is actually pretty boring.
check gizmodo.com too
Do you not note the irony of reading the posts on the link and then writing this?
I believe the other big offender is "guru". Rails "Guru", or Social Media "guru".
Here's a relationship: if I was going to write all my web apps in JavaScript, I would want something like CoffeeScript to ease the pain.
Tell HN:  Let's make Jury Duty more efficient
I've been in Jury Duty all week (in California) for a criminal case. It's been quite possibly hands-down the most inefficient process I've ever experienced.

There are 60 people, and it's taken 4 days to pick the jury.

Here's the process, which is all via pen, paper and in-person interviews:

Day 1. Fill out general survey, wait to be selected for a case. Attend overview meeting, fill out detailed survey relating to the case.
Day 2. Wait to be interviewed
Day 3. Wait to be interviewed
Day 4. Wait to be interviewed

All candidates are required to be in attendance each day.

This is a process that has changed very little in decades. I propose that all of Day 1 be automated via a web application, and Days 2 through 4 can be broken up into pools of candidates based on their survey responses that only come in when they're interviewed.

If I wasn't already forming a start-up, I'd totally try and solve this problem.

Any takers? :)
Voice/video chat.
That totally makes sense- don't blame you. There are vesting plans and cliffs for that. i.e. you could say, "you're a provisional owner for 6 months and after than you vest n% per month to a maximum of x%". That way you can date before you marry and there is a provision for punting him any time in the process (or him wanting to quit).
That's why I prefer running (beautiful scenery) and Yoga (beautiful women) :-)
I'm not trying to talk the issue down. I'm just saying that it's bad enough already without exaggerating it further.
I know. When will Apple stop releasing products for which there is no possible market?

I mean I know I'm an Apple fanboy and all but I think they could have learned from their failures
Build a better RepRap: $80,000 Prize
We agree about consumption, and the essay does a very good job of exploring this, but perhaps I was not clear in the point.

In academics, I often see students continuously consume books and papers believing that they are doing research. While integral in the effort, this is the easiest step in research. What too many do not do is take the next step, which is the creation and evaluation of ideas. In mathematics, one can think of it as depth first search through the space of knowns in hopes of finding a proof of an interesting statement. To be continually successful, one must look at this proof discovery activity as a production step.

But the essay does not look at this as such, instead saying that inspiration does not come from producing. By stating:

It wasn’t until I started running that I realized the value of doing neither [consumption nor production], but instead of processing the things I consumed.

It excludes mental rumination from production. It is this distinction that I don't think is valid. And the essay would be sharper by speaking only of consumption instead of combining consumption and production.
The iPhone has a Kindle app at the pleasure of Apple.
Apparently, two spaces after a period was used in the typewriter days to help readability. Kerning (especially on web pages) helps obviate the need for this today.

However, there are still people who advocate its use. I do it out of habit, but can probably turn it off now that I think of it.