skysight-inc/HackerNews huggingface dataset:
Your form lacks affordance - it's not clear, despite the subscribe header, that one should complete it by tabbing/clicking and then entering data.

On the OP example at Huffduffer one clicks a "sign up" button (which has the mouseover feedback you lack incidentally) to get to a page which is for sign up. Hence the affordance is not so important as they're already in the "I need to enter data"-pipeline.

Also FWIW I think messing with default button formats should be avoided unless you're going to make sure that it's clearly a button (affordance again).
That is true. However there still remain the entry-level interviews. When most of what you sell is potential every detail under your control matters.
Does this mean he's moving down to Palo Alto, or telecommuting from Seattle?
I can't believe they're retiring "random signature" I so thought about using it. I could have had a different funny quote in my signature for every email I sent.
I doubt Goldman or McKinsey would hire you if you wore flip flops to an interview.
Well it's a question of artificial ontology, isn't it? I mean, it'd be awfully tough to legally define what's a "UNIX workstation" and what's a mere "PC". Plenty of UNIX workstations have run Windows in varying capacities, so that can't really be it.

I'd think to capture the "spirit" you'd start with something like "UNIX workstation: a primarily single-user computing system designed by a vendor to primarily run that same vendor's UNIX operating system, an operating system designed exclusively to be run on that vendor's computing systems and which can't easily be run on other vendors systems". That sounds a lot like the business Apple's in (and which apparently nobody else is anymore).
Quitting blogging he's mentioned in the past, so that's not a huge surprise. Killing the podcast (which I assume they are, since Joel's got all the equipment) makes sense as that's been going farther and farther downhill for a while.

Quitting/cutting back on public speaking, however, kinda surprised me. Seems like those are still an effective way to reach new people, though I may be crazy.
What he said. Also have you considered that people can type their password and even if they get it wrong it doesn't matter as their browser/password manager can still remember it. And even then they can always just reset it if they got it wrong.
The titanium iPhone is real, really real (video)
Wow, reading about the wikipedia articles on the difference between sam and acme sounds like the same pattern of arguments of using vi vs. emacs.
Ask HN: Review my WoW guild management app
As their full time job? It would be hard to believe that it's all they do for Google, looks more like a hobby project...
Decentralising social networks, hosting, and search is desirable.

But I can't see anything positive in the decision of the Italian court. Remember this is Italy. It's Berlusconi's country. And the guy is hellbent on eradicating independent media. He won't stop at shutting down Youtube.

Being able to anonymously publish stuff is a very important aspect of the freedom of speech!
If you want to play around without actually creating an account you can log in with: demo@srsguild.com / demo.
Facebook Glitch Sends Messages to the Wrong People
Also on http://blog.stackoverflow.com/2009/04/podcast-50/
how did Harj's time at liveCurrent go? Im very interested as I remember all the press that Harj/Auctomatic recieved when it was purchased.
What was accomplished at liveCurrent?
What a surprise: A media outlet looking to stay afloat lauds the unreleased platform they hope to monetize.
From the Classroom: Finnovations at Work
It's incredibly trendy to beat up on Flash. How come whenever the conversation of Flash vs. JS+HTML5 comes up and we've all circulated our points of view, a sudden "dream world" emerges to save the argument?

I tire of defending the present-day reality vs. the someday utopia that Flash-bashers seem to hold so dear.

HTML5+JS is great, I love it. But no one who pays for content cares. We wouldn't even be discussing this if the opposite were true.
He lives in the Bay Area. He's flying up to Seattle for the meetup.
A 2001 poll conducted by the National Science Foundation in the US revealed the pervasiveness of the problem. Results showed that:

-Only 48% of Americans knew that the earliest humans did not live at the same time as the dinosaurs.

-Only 22% could properly define a molecule.

-Only 45% knew what DNA was and that lasers don't work by focusing sound waves

-Only 48% knew that electrons were smaller than atoms.

I can not comment how many times I have worked with people that have no grasp of the fundamentals of science and the scientific method. Not only we not produce enough scientists, but we produce a ridiculous amount of scientifically illiterate people.
Microsoft retreats from demand that killed whistleblower site
Joel's early writing really gave us a solid model for building our company 9 years ago (for better or for worse) and inspired us to start the thing in the first place. For that I will always be grateful.
Services are Princely (and More Cowbell)
Decentralization may be nice, but it's generally much less efficient. Consumption would rise dramatically. Per-capita consumption decreases as centralization increases. Remember this from last year? http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=619099

Also, the book says:

[S]ince consumption is merely a means to human well-being,
the aim should be to obtain the maximum of well-being with
the minimum of consumption. The less toil there is, the
more time and strength is left for artistic creativity.
Modern economics, on the other hand, considers consumption
to be the sole end and purpose of all economic activity.

Consumption is a word that covers all kinds of ends. Unless you can create ex nihilo, artistic creativity is a consumptive endeavor.
Who's using them? Adobe isn't. Firefox, WebKit? Nope.
Foundem's argument against Google linking to Google
IIS is terrible. Microsoft innovates at the speed of open-source. No contest there.
"backwards compatibility crap"

You said it better than I would.

Also, "the fastest possible machine that given amount of money can buy" is an x86 PC precisely because there are no more Unix workstation manufacturers left.
The problem with the Airbus series of aircraft is that the flight computer has the ultimate authority with flight controls. The flight computer can actually override the pilot if it senses the pilot was attempting to fly outside of programmed limits. Now I would hope that it would release control when it detected a problem, especially when three airspeed sensors are reporting erroneous data.

I wonder if this leaves the pilots too dependent on the computer and therefore didn't know how to fix the problems or if the computer itself caused the crash. I could be completely wrong about this. I don't have any experience with flying, I'm just putting out ideas.
Youtube wants to have the right to profit from the contents of its service, but it doesn't want to be held responsible for damages the content causes.

A landlord who leases his premises to the bar owner for a fixed sum per month is not responsible for the behavior of drunk customers. He's just renting the premises. But the bar owner who makes money on the drinks should be responsible.

The law should assign responsibility to Youtube in a similar way. If Youtube is merely a "landlord" it should not be held responsible for copyright infringement. If, however, it profits from the individual videos that are uploaded, it's hard to see why it should not also bear the loss caused by copyright infringement.
"This is equivalent to following Robert Scoble 21 times."

Thank you, this made me laugh out loud..
I haven't read the article but I think I can see where he's coming from. The developer market is pretty much saturated as far as marketing is concerned. If you're a developer you know who Joel is. So continuing to blog won't yield as many customers as spending time on marketing to other segments.

I personally think it would be smarter to slow his posting frequency rather than quit all together but anyone whose read Joel's blog knows he has a certain love for the dramatic.
Scientology Suspended from Twitter for "Strange Activity"
For several years now, Airbus has offered its customers a special safety program - called "Buss" -- at a cost of €300,000 per aircraft. If the airspeed indicator fails, this software shows pilots the angle at which they must point the plane.

Given the relatively common failure of airspeed indicators (according to the article) I can't imagine this feature wouldn't be standard.
Holding him back from making more $$$$ doing other things. That's the way I see it.

If you're a blogging you know how much time and energy a high-quality blog post takes. If you don't invest a lot of time into your posts, most likely they are not good. That's my opinion, anyway.
i think they're right. even though they're much less customizable, most people (read: people who don't read HN), prefer simple operating systems that abstract away as much as possible.
"... Ubuntu or Linux Mint. ..."

but not debian (hardest technically to install).
I'd rather know which airlines fly Boeing planes, the ones that let the pilots fly when the computers are off.
Grab the domain....
Jesse Schell on the pyschology and economics of Facebook games
I was going to post this exact comment on the blog but it requires some kind of draconian registration scheme. I guess the blogger doesn't really like getting feedback.
the ubuntu netbook remix interface is absolutely simple and easy to use. i have it on my HTPC and it's best described as: "a big ass iPhone". My roommate who has NO computer knowledge (she doesnt even own a computer anymore) uses it with ease to browse the web, watch shows, use boxee, google earth, play music,etc.
This stuff is tough
"... I'm a nerd that smokes ... guess I'll die soon without being cool. ..."

The good thing, the faster you give up, the more chance you have to recover.
I disagree about cause and effect. If you tried to make a RISC workstation today, it would be so slow or expensive that no one would buy it.
When I got my new computer I tried Gnome, the desktop environment (DE) that is default in UBunutu, for a few weeks. I had been using KDE3 prior and KDE4 had just surfaced and was practically unusable.

I tried really hard to like Gnome but I just couldn't get anything done with it. I find it very easy to switch between XP/Vista and KDE4 (which I went to instead of Gnome). YMMV.

What app are you using for your PHP development? I've tried about a dozen different ones (Kate, Eclipse, jEdit, Notepad++, Dreamweaver, ...) and am happy at the moment with Quanta. Unfortunately it's now going through the transition to KDE4 and is under resourced with devs so I'm considering moving to KDevelop.
I think you're coming at this from the wrong approach (though I could be wrong).
I don't go to a website to 'browse', or to get questions answered, and particularly, 'what questions couldn't get answered'.

I think what you are looking for is what does the website do for the business. Does the website attract clients, explain what the company does, and why shirlaws is the best choice?

So, to start 'love business'. What is that? You love business? we should love business? what does loving a business get a person? How is it beneficial? Same thing with the taglines on your slider. They are like a bunch of taglines, but they are somewhat out of context, and what's with all the children?
If you are a business site, why would you fill your site with childish playful images? Do you specialize in business that cater to children? if so, then it might make sense, but I'm not getting that context form what you have.
'Increase turnover'? Shouldn't that be 'decrease turnover'? or I guess it depends on what 'turnover' is referring to. You want to limit staff turnover, not increase it. 'Impove their bottom line'. Who are they? I want to improve my bottom line.
Of course, if you spend a bit more time on the site, you see the 'coaching' stuff, but that isn't what first strikes the visitor, and you'll likely loose a lot of people before they even see that stuff.

Focus on the coaching first. Shirlaws is a coaching company which ..., we help your business...,
Track & Watch Apple Store Rankings With PositionApp
That's really, really awesome.

One idea, add .@ detection. If they ever use .@'s, I'd automatically give them a score of infinity. (Not really, but it sure is annoying and would be a cool thing to factor in)
"Research Scientists" and "People with basic scientific literacy" are different sets — it's perfectly possible for the first set to be too large and the second to be too small.
Or maybe not, except for it being the big tax bill that year instead of a COBRA. This article: http://infoworld.com/d/developer-world/fixing-independent-pr... and one of the comments matches my recollection that Moynihan slipped it into the bill in the dead of night and that it was never directly considered.

Says also that Moynihan tried to get it repealed a year later, so it could be that he was also successful in spinning it as a considered part of the bill instead of a disastrous favor for a very narrow special interest.
Definitely a great book. If you're interested in human-scale development, you should definitely check out the writings of Leopold Kohr (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Leopold_Kohr). E.F. Schumacher (of "Small is Beautiful" fame) was one of his students and Kohr writes even closer to the bone.

His books (my favorite: "The Overdeveloped Nations") are not only extremly insightful but actually fun to read.
Yup, I use GIMP installed from getdeb.net as they usually have updates before Ubuntu repos get them. Also Inkscape is great as a vector editor. Digikam for photo/image management and occasionally I use it for some touch ups too.
He can't slow down posting to his blog TOO much, it's a shock when new content comes up as it is.
Previous discussion: http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1150604
Single page:

http://www.xconomy.com/seattle/2010/02/25/how-amazon-innovat...
Springing To Mexico, Ahlstrom Aims To ‘Create [the VC] Industry’
It's not arbitrary at all. To continue with the bar analogy, YouTube is the bar owner, and the person uploading the video is the bartender who mixed your drink. The landlord in YouTube's case is Google, who, by virtue of the fact that they also own the bar, rather than merely renting space to the party that does, has to assume liability for what happens in the bar.

In the case of EC2, Amazon owns the building, and lets a space to you, to do with more or less what you will. If that happens to be running a bar that serves underage drinkers, how is that their responsibility?

Edited to add: Except, of course, in the case where they've been notified that you are, in fact, serving underage customers. Most leases have verbiage that allows the lessor to break the agreement and boot your ass if you're using the space to break the law. That's how they qualify for safe harbor.
Interesting. Relevant link: http://www.fastcompany.com/1560194/microsoft-and-amazon-sign...
Well, I still remember the demo I used to do for people - draw a "broken" window in the graphical editor and copy this shape and paste it to be the shape of an existing terminal window and have everything work.

OK not very practical but very very cool.
Crocodoc (YC W10) Makes It A Snap To Share And Mark Up Documents
The Citibank response to this problem. Whatever actually happened, the issues seems to have been resolved and written off as a "misunderstanding".

STATEMENT

Citibank sincerely apologizes to Mr. Goldberg for this misunderstanding. This situation had nothing to do with the content of his web site and any comments by our staff to the contrary were incorrect; we are reviewing what happened. This was a technical issue about missing documentation that is required for new business accounts. Once we resolved the situation, we unblocked the account immediately. Mr. Goldberg is a valued customer and we appreciate his business. Also, Citi is strongly committed to diversity, including support for the gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgender community, and other organizations promoting diversity. In fact, this week Citi has announced the financing for the True Colors Residence, a housing facility for homeless GLBT youth in New York City.
Yeah it's kind of like that whole "if you're not following 1000+ people you're not a real Twitter user" article that made the rounds a while back. Maybe if you just want another way to kill time and procrastinate at work (as if we don't have enough already) you should follow thousands of people on Twitter, but if you're actually trying to get some real value out of it then it's insane to follow that many people—unless you're a professional blogger, which is where the self-fulfilling prophecy of Twitter hype comes from.
http://cryptome.org/ is back online.
Yes, but you're (presumably) h. sapiens. You've got big flat feet that displace a lot of water (twice) every time you take a step.

An antelope's hooves are hard and narrow, so they generate less turbulence going into the water. I'm not sure how the antelope deals with the mud on the bottom of the river, though.
Memo to CEOs & Founders: Stop Being Such Cheap Bastards
Reaching the citi limits (citi apologizes to fabulis)
It would be more interesting to me to see this with a bar for "none" and "aboslutely not". But there indeed does seem to be some correlation to the number of search results and effectiveness.
it was probably a good example in how not to manage an acquisition. within a week of joining our team was split up, our product shut down and a lot of the resources we'd been promised weren't available. from other people I've spoken to who have been acquired, this isn't an atypical scenario.

still, I ended up working on cricket.com and enjoyed it, took it from a site of spam links to a community for cricket fans with 1m monthly uniques and $30k revenue a month. I left after just over a year there.
Fixing Independent Programmers' No-Win Scenario
The economics of placebos for self-remitting diseases
If they say things that interest you keep following, if they spam/post crap unfollow them?

Maybe I have just got completely the wrong idea about this follow/unfollow lark though.

I think it's dishonest/useless to follow people if you're not genuinely interested in things they say.
It also doesn't list Citocoline (one of the ingredients in that 5-hour energy stuff), which according to WebMD* is actually used a bit in medicine in regards to stroke victims and alzheimers sufferers.

[*] Not necessarily an authoritave source, I'm aware.
Why bonuses and performance pay are a bad idea
In a lot of ways this would work for a goodly chunk of people. I think if Apple did this, they should allow for alternate app stores and IT managed deploys on an App Store model (all organization computers hook to the local app store which hooks to various commercial app stores)
KLIKOT =  FREGATURA...
Does Web 3.0 Exist? You Tell Me
Yeah, the grey listing. The anti-spam technique that works only because it is not widely used, so... shhhh :)
I think what Amazon has done is really interesting. Develop capability for your own requirement and then later generalize it as product offering (Except Kindle). Imagine what Amazon could have done if they had Research budget of Microsoft of Google.

Google is also kind of following same footsteps. Gmail was developed for their internal use and then came out as product. They should start offering their internal HR and Finance apps as hosted ERP solutions.
fyi: here's a pic of how it looks- http://i48.tinypic.com/1z677lj.jpg

probably not the best, but it's absolutely thrilling to use. controlling google earth in 1080p using multi-touch gestures on your iPhone on a 47 inch HDTV is tons of fun.
NoSQL, Yes Search
I'd recommend adding "from Twitter" to the title, as otherwise it's unclear what sort of suspension this refers to.

EDIT: looks like somebody made the change - thanks!
Wouldn't be surprised if cricinfo made a big offer for that domain at some point. Where do you pull the scorecard data from?
I think what this article don't realize is that Italy's ruling is BENEFICIAL to large corporations, not some sort of "equalizing" factor. Every time some sort of ridiculous regulation has been put in place the big corporations have had the capital to comply, and the individuals have been given even more roadblocks to compete. The lack of imagination is not in not imagining a peer to peer web, but rather in not imagining a Google that can innovate around these restrictions.

Take this safe harbor thing. Let's say that it becomes abolished for sites like YouTube across the board. Do you think Google would say "oh too bad, time to shut down the site". Of course not. Google has the money to pay for a million mechanical-turk style people to view every video, and the innovative prowess to create programs that would do filtering as well. The end result would be that they would probably err on the side of being too cautious, and we'd have a YouTube with far less content.

However, the true problem here is that if I now wanted to compete with YouTube, it would be impossibly difficult due solely to the liability of it all. I can't afford to have a huge staff looking at every video, or massive servers running analysis on every upload. So all of a sudden what you've done is SOLIDIFY YouTube's stranglehold on content.

Not to mention that you've all of a sudden given Google the perfect excuse for denying any content they want, they can now just hide behind "liability concerns". We've already seen that companies abuse DMCA takedowns with fair use, of course there would be abuse of this as well.
Dubai murder suspects climb to 26
Designer of the ARM chip discusses energy efficient desgin
Lots of geeks get their dander up when they find out you have a doctorate, and start hammering on you harder, as if to prove something to themselves. I've also had people explicitly question my interest in jobs, to my face.

I've had this happen as well, but once you overcome these obstacles, you are at an advantage.

On interviews, I get that initial skepticism that I'm too "pie in the sky". That vanishes after a coding test. As for my interest in jobs, I've been asked that, but it's always been a fair question (in fact, I've never been asked that about a job I really wanted).
Unfortunately Oracle isn't including OpenSolaris in their roadmaps, haven't responded to the open letter, and just published EOL dates for OpenSolaris for the first time (but still say OpenSolaris isn't going anywhere).
Not to pick on you personally, but people keep mentioning how good direct marketers are. Does anyone have any (scientific-ish) references for this? I'd like to read more about it.
You don't need a PhD to be a scientist and do real research. You need a PhD to be a tenure-track professor and hold a research position in many industrial labs.

The education process produces credentials. Curiosity about the world and the courage to ask questions (and lots of math and other technical skills) produce scientists. Same thing for inventors.
This idea's going to get market-tested real soon now. There's a lot of companies trying to replace the conventional desktop with something simpler. During 2010 alone we'll be seeing the release of: Apple's iPad, Google's ChromeOS devices, Intel/Nokia's MeeGo, Notion Ink's Adam, Jolicloud, the JooJoo, Microsoft's Courier (maybe), and countless others.

There's also things that are already shipping, like Ubuntu's Netbook Remix and the Litl netbook.

These products are all daggers aimed at killing traditional desktops in one way or another. They've got a good shot, too: I've been using UNR as my primary OS for over a year now, and it's met all my needs both as a user and as a developer. I still keep around a MacBook for photo work, but it's been almost entirely replaced by a netbook + phone.

We'll see who the winners eventually are. However, it seems pretty obvious that Windows and OS X in their current form are doomed.
Or give early employees decent option grants.