skysight-inc/HackerNews huggingface dataset:
I confess (as the poster) that I'm not a huge fan or even a regular reader of this blog.

But his writing is often stimulating, provocative and insightful; and moreover provides a useful counterpoint to the startup and technology blogs I spend most of my procrastination time reading.

Edit: note that he is not saying "the sky is about to fall", on the contrary he specifically says "the changes involved won't be sudden". Whatever flaws he has, he is not the alarmist, paranoid type. He is urging awareness and preparedness in the face of some worrying trends.
Battle for domination of the sex appeal: women in tech vs. women in cartoon
I don't think this is going to happen, but for sure I can see them offering some very optimized tool that developers can use, like private API that 3rd party ad networks won't be able to access.
I am filling a web form on Safari/iPhone and I need to enter 3 emergency contact phone numbers (relative, friend1, friend2). I don't remember all the numbers but I have them in my phone's contact list. How can I do this on iPhone/iPad if it doesn't let me run two apps at once?
These are the people who vote on decisions about property taxes, state legislators, mayors, and other political offices in which your vote counts more than at the national level, and which affects how your tax money is spent. These are the people who, as a collective, determine property values in your neighborhood. For purely selfish reasons it is a to your benefit to engage with them on occasion. As large a part as the internet is in your (and my) life, geography is still relevant (and the office, alas, still not paperless).

There are many factors that impact your life; you do not live on a cybernetic island. By less disconnected and more community-focused, I mean precisely that you should interact with the people around you. Your children should play with theirs, you should make physical connections as well as virtual ones. As to why you should want that, obviously you do not, and I don't dictate your wants.

For myself and my children, I want them to interact with the kids around them, and I want a nation of civically engaged communities. I believe there is balance to be had, and I am looking for that balance in my own life and how I can help bring more community to the city where I live.
Docky 2.0 su Ubuntu 9.10 Karmic
Hi, my name is mos1 :-)

I doubt anybody would claim my entertainment budget is "austere", but it is substantially reduced from what it was when we lived in a smaller place. We almost completely stopped ordering out on weekdays, and we eat out about half as much as we used to on weekends.

We went from buying everything, to buying only things we don't know how to cook, or that are a pain to cook.
IPad to Test Zittrain's "Future of the Internet" Thesis
I find it a little odd that Apple, which really seemed to drive adoption of digital music sales with 99 cent songs, seems to now have a hand in driving digital book sales, although by pushing the relative price upwards.

It will be interesting to see where the price point is that enough people are willing to buy a book rather than pirate it.
100-GHz Transistors from Wafer-Scale Epitaxial Graphene

http://www.sciencemag.org/cgi/content/abstract/sci;327/5966/...
The difference is that there is a limit to the number of public stocks and to the number of regulated casinos and lottery schemes that are out there. This makes policing the system for fraud and abuse a somewhat tractable problem. If there were no limits on angel investing then it would, in a heartbeat, become the preferred mechanism for scammers and fraudsters -- instead of getting sucked into a pump and dump scheme that the SEC might eventually find the victims would invest in fraudulent companies that would disappear in a puff of smoke once the checks clear...
Did they seriously use Tinkertoys for that model? Sure looks like it! Awesome explanation.

Reminds me of what used to be my favorite website to kill time but still learn something: http://howstuffworks.com
There a couple of tasks where multitasking makes a lot of sense for even non-power-users. The huge one being to play music in the background, either via my mp3 player or streaming via my webbrowser. The other one being skype and chat programs. Someone sends you a link on skype and you don't want to shut down your chat session to look at the page. Even if Apple won't go full multitasking, perhaps they will allow some sort of selective multitasking based on tasks where it makes sense.
Sadly, advice like "learn a practical skill" is either overshoot or undershoot. If there is no collapse, it's undershoot. If there is a collapse, victory goes to organized groups with guns and tanks.
"One important use of flash video is in ads. Many users feel these ads are too intrusive, but the industry demands them and they have near universal adoption. Penny-arcade had a strict policy against such ads, but when 99% of ads requests became flash based even they changed their tune."

This is one of the major reasons I don't have flash installed in my browser.

As a consequence of this and using privoxy to block regular html ads, my web browsing is virtually ad-free.
I guess I don't see the need to pay 400 bucks for a piece of 'beta' hardware.

I do see your point, and you are right, I think it will get better in V 2.0, but it's expensive and it is hardware so I think the example only goes so far.
Clever!!!
Samsung S8300 Tocco Unlocked - 8MP Camera Phone
Samsung S8300 Tocco the most of now for your daily work as Samsung has just arrived with edition. The phone has features latest and updated versions’ of software’s and hardware’s. The phone gives you following features like. 8 MP of camera with screen resolution.
I view technology in a compartmentalized way. I'm always going to want a powerful desktop that has endless flexibility but I also want something simple that always works well. I don't really care if I can't run BitTorrent on my iPad. I can do that on my desktop.
I predict that no fewer than 16 meta-languages and API layers will be piled on top of existing development methodologies, and that all future operating system graphics will be rendered in fully textured 3D, and that development will consist of drag-and-drop objects.

So, in short, the end-user experience won't change at all.

(Sorry, I'm a little cranky at the moment. Too many slow applications for no bloody good reason.)
When Windmills Don’t Spin, People Expect Some Answers
I guess my point on heat was that a thing that I think needs to be done with all of these monitors is to add other kinds of household energy uses (like nat gas, oil) to the electrical data already being captured.

Natural gas is usually delivered in units of energy called "therms", oil is delivered by the gallon (or litre), and electricity is delivered by the kWh -- all of these measures of energy can be converted into kWh so could be displayed together in a single display.
Ask HN: Review my startup - SyncFu.com
In theory, angel investors are limited. In practice, that is not the case.

There are many ways for your Uncle Jimmy to give you $10K without needing to be accredited. And if it's not your Uncle Jimmy investing, or they want to give you $100k, they are probably accredited.

The rules around angel investing are a non-issue.
Have you searched for the nutrition-based threads and comments that have popped up on HN? I got the impression weight problems were more hormonal/metabolic rather than caloric intake/expenditure. You might get some ideas on how to hack the problem more efficiently.
I didn't think fractals had to be geometric shapes, but Wikipedia seems to agree with you, so I stand corrected. (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fractal)

I still think the analogy is pretty good though.
Regarding the employee saving 10K to invest - it's fine for an employee to invest in the company he/she works for. However, since that company already has employees it stands to reason that 10K is probably not going to buy much equity. If the employee wants a bigger piece of a startup, he needs to look for an seed opportunity (one that is probably legally off limits).
Code Considered Harmful
Awesome. Let the big publishers shoot themselves in the foot so that small publishers and independent authors can undercut them, yet still make more money per book.

With the end-to-end digital process, you'll see a lot of authors selling independently (as has already started on the Kindle) and publishers will be caught on the back foot. Readers will vote with their dollars and smart authors will skip the publishers and provide what readers want without them.
Linda.lunde - Opplysningen 1881
I don't even think they need full multitasking. What they really need is some sort of API that lets you run a tiny cooperative process that can do some simple things like keep a socket open or send a push notification to the GUI. Little stuff like that. And then a manager makes sure that none of those co-processes hog resources. Keep app startup times down, which people should be doing anyway, and the rest of the whinging about Multitasking goes away.

Supporting quick application shutdown and startup is a better way to make apps in any case.
Apple just created a larger iPhone.

That 'just' bit is where Apple got it right and everybody else got it wrong. Everybody else started with a successful desktop computer and tried to shrink it to a tablet. Apple started with a successful smartphone and tried to grow it to a tablet. It may seen simple in hindsight, but it is a fundamentally different approach, and the approach which may just make the iPad a success.
TechCrunch being hypocritical?  (Updated 2/5)
Embedding Pictures in Music
Bah, humbug. Lazy young'uns. When I was growing up, we didn't have no youtube. We had to learn differential gears by actually assembling one in a RC car model kit.

Obligatory irony: it was this one: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7OCeKMHzEbQ
Maybe some sort of "It's a Wonderful Life" scenario where everyone tries to call in their debts at once, and then (instead of what happens in the classic) gets vicious about collecting.
The iPhone already lets people listen to music while browsing the web. I don't know what it does during third-party apps.
It seems like they could improve that case by selectively allowing objects to be transferred from one place to another. The Address Book API already allows apps to pop up a people picker and choose contact details from it. It's too bad Safari doesn't use this. A general solution would allow apps to advertise the data that they want make available between applications.

A developer is already working on something like this: http://infinite-labs.net/swapkit/
Darpa unclassified budget listing various research goals (500 page pdf)
Until the dollar and power cost of RAM is so low it doesn't matter. Then you can forget about those hoops.

Though one nice side effect of those hoops is that your app appears to survive a reboot.
Where (and when) would the compiler for the shader run?
Yes.

I'd much rather read an interview with Xavier Leroy, inventor of OCaml (which F# is basically a Microsoft appropriation of).

Kind of ironic, but quite typical, that the people who really deserve the credit get passed over in favor of imitators.
I got the impression that while bubbles still exist they are smaller relative to GDP than they used to be.
Your point seems to pass the test for me. Is there a place for people to group up and make these types of investments? Say 10 people each want to make a $2000 investment. Seems like a good idea to me...
Don't waste time with slideshows, just put up a video and explain what it is your product does and why I care!
Show up to YC demo day as a non-accredited investor, and tell us how it goes :)
If they pursued that path they would be nailed with an antitrust suit the day after they announced that position.
Is that the Learning Strategies one? I'm wary of that company..
Maybe you should just use another language [..]

Believe me, I'm trying :)
This may be possible, but I think part of the value a publisher brings an author is editing/review services.
Here is the spectrogram, and some others.
http://www.bastwood.com/aphex.php
Yahoo! Search is looking for frontend engineers with strong JavaScript and/or PHP skills. Feel free to email me directly (ryan@wonko.com) and I'll put you in touch with the hiring manager.
The US Senate Becomes A Polish Joke
Haven't been able to make it work in Chromium either (launching it in webgl/no sandbox mode).

Has anybody sucessfully ran the demos?
Ask HN: Review our startup: Unbig.me
The concept is still in an early beta stage but I've love to get some feedback.

http://unbig.me/
All the more reason to get your feature done first, am I right?
Awkward: A Company (Not Apple) Just Released an "iTablet" in UK
I can't believe these guys get anything done!
Cue a rebutting (but not admitting that's what it is) 37signals blog post in 5.. 4.. 3..

Seriously, though, I think the message is more that you should take bigger risks and push yourself further into an area where failure is quite likely.. rather than to merely try to fail ;-)
The problem is that most people earning over 200K/year in salary are not part of the startup community (what kind of startup pays that kind of salary?). They're probably too scared to invest, and rightfully so.

On a side note, your comment made me think of one silver lining in the current law: if nothing changes, inflation should break down this barrier. I wouldn't be surprised if in 10 years time, startups pay over 200K.
Bump Technologies:
We are looking for smart people that fit our culture. Mac/Obj-C/iPhone/Cocoa/Android experience a plus, but not required if you are interested in learning iPhone or Android.

The Bump App is one of the most popular iPhone applications with >9M downloads. Our Bump SDK lets anyone add bumping to their app in ~9 lines of code. We have a big vision and are having a lot of fun! :) Half of our dev team came from HN. YC/Sequoia/Conway backed.

Email jobs@bu.mp and mention HN.
That's because Zillow.com calulates values using square footage! Calculations don't make it so!
I won't disagree that square footage plays a very significant role in value, but how significant will vary.

Their estimates are interesting to look at, but are subject to error from many sources. A place with bad paint, a cracked/shifting foundation, termites, no central heat and a bad roof doesn't have those things properly accounted for. Also, one nearby property selling unusually high or low for some odd reason with throw off the numbers for the other properties nearby. I saw that with a apartment to condo conversion where the last unit went to a family member of the developer for a much lower price. As the other units sold, local houses were seeing a rise, when that last one sold there was a $30,000 drop.

Even actual selling prices aren't too reliable of an indicator now with such a disturbed market. Bankruptcy sales (or panic sales to avoid bankruptcy) certainly can distort values.

It'll vary with the market, but I think I'd feel safer testing estimated value against other criteria. The price is a fairly safe one if rental income could cover payments on a 30 yr fixed loan for 90% of the amount (the rest being the down payment). At least that method isn't so easily disturbed by erratic pricing nearby.
They don't need to ban third party ad networks to undercut their prices, but I agree at least one is likely to happen.
This is a nit, but wouldn't "designer" be a better word than "inventor"?
So, about 10 years until they make their way into pcs. Hopefully hard drives will be fast enough to keep up with these new processors by then. It'd be really frustrating to have a computer with a processor that's 50x as fast, but the computer only runs about 1.5x overall.
Skittles’ Colorful, Clearly Drug-Induced, Never-Ending Wacky Website
I wish it was $10, the ticket I got today (was 3 minutes late to the meter) was $30. Of course this is Somerville, but the laws seem to stay consistent between the two.
Sounds like continuous integration to me -- http://martinfowler.com/articles/continuousIntegration.html

Which is how I prefer to code.

Edit: "Work in Small Batches" is another great post on the subject by Eric Ries http://www.startuplessonslearned.com/2009/02/work-in-small-b...
Thanks Jacques. I appreciate the discussion and I've learned a ton about the community in this process. Thanks HN.
Clean-downloads
this is very true. that also gets around some of the possible antitrust issues.
I agree, and it won't work for a lot of authors yet, but I see no reason why a smart, modern author can't become better at dealing with business, marketing, and publishing and outsourcing or performing certain editorial functions. (Of course, you could argue that a publisher is better value for money, but authors need to calculate that for themselves.)

Once upon a time, putting together a community newsletter or a magazine was a big, difficult job that involved many people. Now you can use DTP, graphics editors, on demand printing, etc (such as MagCloud), and get great results by yourself. Similar advances are being made (and will continue to be made) in writing/publishing.
For the sake of all my American friends here as some sure signs of a country's imminent collapse (from direct experience). First there will be water shortages and the mains water becomes undrinkable. Second you will get electricity blackouts at irregular intervals and then the country will reach a point where the electricity is more off than on. Thirdly the pot holes in the roads will start growing. Fourthly the cops - especially the traffic cops will become very friendly in the pursuit of bribes and very zealous in enforcing all rules and regulations.

If you are experiencing any of these recently in the State you are living, I suggest you increase your debt to maximum (you can pay it down the line with hyperinflation money or just ignore it) stock up on your ipods and laptops and host your application on a .eu or .asia domain and enjoy the new exchange rates!

For more information on survival tactics you can contact the flatearthsociety.org :)
I've read a small portion as well.. bits regarding access to credit / finance / consumer banking are particularly salient, as are those regarding the state of inner city schools, and a whole bunch of other factors.

Citing "laziness" is really the easy way out -- clearly your job and my job are more "lazy" in some senses than being, say, a day laborer. So why can't the day laborer move up easily? A whole bunch of reasons, very few of which have to do with laziness. You can try to cite intellectual laziness if you want, but these guys didn't exactly get a chance to take AP calc senior year.

Regarding your ex, yeah, immigrant groups do have extremely high mobility and that's one of the great things about America is our (waning) receptiveness towards immigrants. But they're an extremely self-selecting group. That's not "average".

Regarding you and me (assuming you're a reasonably successful developer in some fashion), the major financial differentiator between us and our peers is the fact that tech work pays really well right now and doesn't necessitate a bunch of grad school debt. If I wasn't born on an automatic trajectory for college? And was the same guy in every other way? I'm at best a 50% shot at becoming a developer.. probably I'm working at Safeway instead. And doing a good job at that job, because I'm not lazy and that's my nature.

You can claim to be substantially more "fit" than me if you want.. and hey, maybe you are -- but if you're going to claim "gumption" as opposed to "born lucky" as the major reason you are where you are, then statistically, you're probably just underestimating the luck.
It should be pointed out, for the edification of those who are not VLSI people, that transistors with an f_t of 100GHz are not the same thing as transistors from which one can build a credible 100GHz processor. f_t is the input frequency at which the gain through the transistor (biased in the linear region) is unity (1). This has some relation to how fast the transistor can switch from 0 to 1 when biased in the saturation region (the way digital logic works), but it is not 1:1. Likewise, the cycle time of a processor is the delay of the longest path from one flip-flop or latch (storage element) to another flip-flop that is expected to take 1 clock cycle. The length of this path is typically expressed as a multiple of the propagation delay of an inverter driving 4 other inverters (delay grows with output load, or fanout) (FO4 delays http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/FO4). Typically, high-performance processor microarchitectures are designed with a 5 (Pentium IV) - 25 (slower but more power-efficient) FO4 delay critical path. Once you account for clock skew, jitter, process/temperature variation, etc., your processor frequency is 1 to 2 orders of magnitude lower than your transistors' f_t.

The authors of this paper are careful to point out that their graphene transistors' f_t is higher than CMOS transistors of the same gate length (240nm), but that is comparing with a ~12-year-old CMOS processes. Modern CMOS processes are faster than this (for instance, this paper http://wwwtw.vub.ac.be/elec/Papers%20on%20web/Papers/DLinten... assumes a 90nm RF CMOS process with an NMOS f_t of 150GHz). Graphene can certainly catch up once they figure out how to shrink the devices, but it will take more than productizing the current state-of-the-art to compete with CMOS.
I'll let my wife know.
What's there to 'police'? It was legal for GM to go bankrupt wiping out its stockholders. It's legal for a casino to take all a person's money.

(And even the 'tractable' policing doesn't work so well: see Madoff and many smaller scams.)

What's more, those people willing and able to 'disappear in a puff of smoke once the checks clear' can already do so. They don't care so much about the rules, and if willing to deceive can make their scams appear to fit whatever rules are in effect.

And if this wave of fraud you predict were to appear, people would learn quickly. (Are there that many people who'd race to invest in loosely-attached, no-reputation fraudsters? Moreso than those same marks already gamble or buy snake oil?) And you could still chase down the biggest fraudsters, using the same laws and mechanisms that already exists.

If any rule is necessary, a far more sensible rule would cap private-equity investment at some liberal percentage of net worth -- say 50%. You can easily lose 50% of your money in public stocks, even the stock market as a whole. So even the stupidest non-millionaire private investor wouldn't lose everything before understanding, "Hmm, I may need to do some due diligence on these get-rich-quick schemes!"
Whoa how relevant to my interests, not 15 minutes ago I went to my car to find an orange red envelope waiting for me (however I didn't get as excited as I do when it comes from a Redditor) Unfortunately I live in Somerville MA, so your app doesn't help me (yet?)
I don't think we will have "hard drives" then. The solid state disks are starting to come down in price and the speed is nice in comparison. But, yes, I feel your pain.
"The Failure of Empathy" — a computer for everyone else
Wikispaces is hiring in engineering and sales:
http://www.wikispaces.com/jobs. We'll cross 4M registered users today (see our front page). We're an 8-person company in SOMA.
And if they tried to sell ads on the cheap, they would probably be nailed with a suit as well. Another version of "dumping."
An end to frivolous patents may finally be in sight