skysight-inc/HackerNews huggingface dataset:
I've measured the CPU usage of playing an H.264 clip at 18% for QuickTime Player, and 90% for Flash 10.1 beta. This was on a machine that does not have any hardware to accelerate H.264, and the number for Flash was measured while there was no interaction with the Flash object, and nothing was being overlaid above the video itself. If we assume that Flash's software decoder actually is at least as efficient as the one built in to the OS, then that means that the non-decoding work (color space conversions, compositing, scaling, and any overhead due to the plugin API) adds up to at least four times more work than the decoding itself. This is while the compositing and scaling are trivial! (The video was being played at native size, not fullscreen, and with nothing overlaid.)

If the plugin system really causes that much trouble, then why was Adobe complaining about the lack of a low-level API for hardware-accelerated H.264 decoding? It would seem that they are in more dire need of a much-improved plugin architecture, so that they can outsource more of the compositing and color space conversion.

Since Adobe has tried to excuse a lot of the performance problems as due to the lack of an appropriate H.264 API, it's time for them to put their money where their mouth is. If they release a new plugin that uses this new API, and the performance is hardly improved, then it means the complaints about the lack of this API were merely a red herring to shift as much blame as possible to Apple and to distract from the real causes. If performance does increase significantly, it will mean that Flash's software decoder was shit all along, and we can move on to bashing Apple for only supporting 3 of the many hardware H.264 decoders that they ship.

The blog you link to makes it clear that there need to be major changes to how in-browser video is handled. It also makes it clear that Adobe's stance is that it is the duty of the operating system to provide APIs that fit Flash's rendering pipeline, rather than have Adobe redesign the Flash player so that it can take advantage of existing acceleration APIs. In the case of the Linux plugin, there are several different APIs that are potentially useful, but Adobe is waiting for the dust to settle and for a clear winner to emerge. Given what we've seen on OS X about how the exact nature of the APIs matters so much to Adobe, it is odd that they are avoiding participating in the open-source process by supporting a particular API and helping ensure that it will meet their needs.
I think that's the disease of security researchers - thinking that Average Joe will give a shit. Average Joe's got more interesting thing to do than some hypothetical threat - unless the threat actually occurs, in which case he'll start shooting the messenger.
When this whole thing broke, there was some mention of the software product that's actually doing the monitoring and photography. I wonder what's become of that company now?
I really hope SVG finds its place in the new HTML5 wave. I would hate to see it die
I've been using the steelcase airtouch adjustable desk for about 3 months and I can tell you that it has made a huge impact on my workday. This desk has improved my productivity significantly because I'm no longer bothered my my back or by the low desk/high chair combo I was confined to.

It's not just the standing that helps-it's the ability to switch back and forth easily. Before this desk, I could feel my back start to tighten up after about 3/4 of my work day. Now when I feel a twinge of a backache, I switch to a standing position and things feel much better. Another underrated benefit of the desk is the ability to change its height while I'm sitting. In the cases when I either lean lower and sit straighter than usual, this desk allows me to move the monitor to eye level without much effort, thus preventing neck aches.

One problem with the steelcase, however, is that it doesn't go high enough. I have a colleague that is 6'2" and he finds that the standing height of the desk is too low for his tastes. I'm shorter than he is, so this isn't as big of a problem for me. Now if only I could afford to buy one of these for home.....

edited: clarity
Whether the parody defence applies here or not seems to me in my non-expert opinion to be an iffy issue, especially as it may apply in some jurisdictions but not others. There's certainly a case to be made, but why should youtube foot the bill for making it?

Anyone who is really upset about this and is sure that the parody defence will work is free to host their own Hitler parody and try to get themselves sued by the producers. I might even kick in ten bucks to your legal budget.

Of course the other issue here is less to do with parody and more to do with the Germans' legendary touchiness on the subject of Hitler. I remember when that film first came out there was some controversy about whether it was excessively "humanising" Hitler (as if Hitler were something other than human).
Apple buying ARM doesn't make much sense. Apple taking a large stake in ARM as a diversification move to offset the risk of a decline in sales, on the other hand, might make sense. Some other commenters have noted that Apple's original stake in ARM helped their balance sheet before in the 90s, maybe they're looking to repeat history if there's a downturn.
The video is cool but I really want to see some screenshots or a video of the app in action. Right now your landing page is kind of a black box and I can't see what's inside without signing up..

I'm also not sure who your target market is. Are you going after Jill the restaurant owner or John the web startup junkie?
No, this won't fly. Maybe a lawsuit based on trade secret misappropriation, but not infringement of copyright.
I know this has been posted on HN before, but I figured since it was Earth Day it would be interesting bring up again.

I especially like his recommendation that climate science adopts double-blind experimentation in order to test their models.
I think anything that "looks cool" will be good for getting a kid interested in science. Once you've got him/her hooked, then you can start on the actual scientific method. To that end, science things that look cool:

Cymatics:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1iXY2BE1S8Q

Ferrofluid:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zpBxCnHU8Ao
http://www.gaussboys.com/ndfeb-magnets/FerroFluid25

Non Newtonian Liquids:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=S5SGiwS5L6I
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=f2XQ97XHjVw

Microcontrollers:
http://www.radioshack.com/product/index.jsp?productId=211799... (maybe not the best for a 5 year old, but in a couple years)

Make a Speaker for cheap (haven't done this one myself):
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8m8fbnShPcw

Electromagnets:
http://education.jlab.org/qa/electromagnet.html

Finally, one project I did with my little brother that I thought was cool. I got a frequency analyzer for my computer ( http://www.relisoft.com/Freeware/freq.html) and then filled glass cups with varying amounts of liquid. Then we ran our fingers around the lip of the glass to get it to "sing" and measured the frequency. We were able to come up with a function for X amount of liquid gives you X frequency. I thought this was great because: it was really appealing to my brother (he was 10 or so at the time) because all kids like making cups make noise, we got to do scientific method (hypothesis being more water in the glass) will make a lower frequency, I got to teach him about graphing, how to get a forumla for a line on a graph, and finally we could use that line to predict things to see if we were right.
One thing I initially hated about HN but have quickly grown to like: usernames are displayed in tiny, faint text. There are no avatar images, signatures, or other visual identifiers. This has a similar, though limited, effect -- it puts the focus on the content, not on the user. (My wife regularly reads my comments without realizing I'm the author; this would not happen on a board with avatars.) Yet it also allows users to build a reputation over time, encouraging us to consistently produce quality content.
For as much complaints that people had for this x button being on the wrong side, I have to say that I am really impressed with the growth between these two releases.

I understand where Ubuntu was when it came up with the brown design, but they hit a cord with the linux community and realized that they outgrew what they originally set out to do. I think the design shown in 10.04 really shows that understanding.
Interestingly enough, only 498 users out of ~32K have 2000 or more votes. Whereas 4877 users only have one vote. Someone feel free to double check this.
What do you mean by "small definitions of better"? Can you do a cartoon with synchronized sound with HTML5? Better is a matter of "does it work for enough of your audience that it makes sense to build it".

If you know your audience and can push the technology, by all means go for it! GitHub has exactly that audience. They aren't idiots for going with canvas - for them it's a savvy move. But the Flash option is still there for a reason too.
No problem ;)

As for me, I find it is a lot easier to contribute to smaller, less developed projects. There is more to do, and I feel I can have a bigger impact. Also, its less intimidating than big projects, you don't need as much domain specific expertise with smaller projects.
Google Street View logs WiFi networks, MAC addresses
This is astonishing. The value of those parodies as advertising for the film must be enormous. Whatever one might think of the parodies, they certainly whet my appetite for seeing the movie.
Red noise, to be precise: http://www.google.com/search?q=hockey+stick+red+noise
Who did the genetic matching? The same FBI labs that were well known for making up results to support their cases?
Are you saying that you won't buy the phone because Gizmodo told you about it before Apple? If so, how do you justify that? If not, why does any of this matter?
I weighed 320 pounds when I cut out carbs. I lost approximately 5 pounds a week until I got down to 275 at which point I couldn't stand it any more and pigged out on donuts.
Stop being lived and live
I work standing with my laptop on top of a chrome wire shelf:

http://www.theshelvingstore.com/Chrome_Wire_Shelving_s/34.ht...

They are available in a bunch of depths and heights and are easy to adjust. You probably won't be moving them up and down multiple times during the day, but can configure it to a comfortable height. They run about $100.
Kneel at a low desk on something soft? Just an idea.
But realistically how long will it take for canvas and HTML 5 to catch up with similar market penetration? 10 years? Certainly not less than 5.
good call, perhaps We should ping them about the experience
Style: Ten Lessons in Clarity and Grace
The data was opt-in (redditors had to specifically elect to enter this dataset), so it's probably biased somewhat.
A 6 year old paper is limited in its utility, especially since the CRU email leak confirmed that the "alarmists" have been systematically keeping the other side out of the peer-reviewed literature.
Not if you're only spoofing yourself. He called himself with the bogus caller ID to get the number associated with it.
I don't know, he seems like a stand-up guy to me...
Even 100% of a small number is still ..a small number.
No, people use Flash because of what it can do as a platform. As "development environment" goes, Adobe's own tools are subpar and easily surpassed by third-party environments, many of them free.

Wanting Adobe to create tools that output to HTML5 is like asking Porsche to put their engines in bicycles; it doesn't make any sense. Even if you include all the tentative, beta, untested, -webkit-*, or otherwise suggested features for the spec, HTML5 isn't even close to Flash in terms of complete features.
THEY CAME FIRST for the copyrighted Youtube videos,
and I didn't speak up because I wasn't a fan of lame soundtrack videos.

THEN THEY CAME for the Youtube old layout,
and I didn't speak up because I kinda like the new layout.

THEN THEY CAME for my Hitler parody videos
and by that time no one was left to speak up.
it is if you care about money
As a huge fan of Linux, I have to say the modern Apple and Microsoft operating systems look significantly better.
For starters they could offer to compensate those wrongfully booted out because of their failure for costs incurred.

That would go a long way to showing they really care about them, instead of just about their own reputation.

I see this as a salvaging operation, probably at the instigation of the new investor they've found, a way to use the fact that they are in the spotlight to do a cheap 'mea culpa' while getting as much mileage out of it for their own shop. There is no such thing as 'bad publicity', especially not if you can spin it to your advantage by showing what an upstanding guy you are by apologizing in public. But words are cheap.

Maybe I'm too cynical here, but really if they did anything over and beyond simply saying stuff I'd be a lot more convinced this is heartfelt.
Sony might update PS3 without owner's consent
I love this concept - not everyone realizes that the original design idea behind the cubicle was exactly this kind of feature:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Action_Office

We lost the idea along the way, but I am glad we're getting back to it.
A quick check with Google indicates you're right, and that's the sort of thing he certainly would have said back in that period.

Thanks for the correction.
as mentioned in the reddit thread, one coud assume that power users would allow public voting and therefore would be voting more. I of course, just looked at the extremes and do not have a timeframe
World’s Most Stunning Data Centers
Thanks a lot for the feedback:

I have a slightly irrational fear that this sails close to spamming - Good point, but that's certainly not what we're trying to do. We're getting their message out to people who want it. They're not pushing it to everybody, just people that connected to their social networks, or visited their website, or reporters who want to write about it.

FAQs - You're right, we were kind of using FAQs for both potential customers and existing ones.

Is your product essentially a custom-hosted CMS - One of the features is a CMS-like system. Companies can optionally choose to host their website on our servers. Regardless of whether or not they do, we still broadcast it to all the other places.

Thanks for the thoughts, we'll definitely use it!
Maybe YOUR lizard brain, but we ALL have to remember - we're geeks. One of my son's favorite sites is http://www.pigeonpresents.com/ (don't bother looking at the source if you prefer your sanity). It's a simple site for kids, but doing many of the things the site does with HTML5,etc would be quite painful if they were possible at all.
After spending time looking it over it seems like it's potentially a really cool and useful service. From the little marketing I've done, I know it can be tedious to manage a bunch of services. Here's my feedback on your home page:

1) No, it wasn't clear until I went back for my second visit. I originally thought it was some link or photo sharing service. The egg is distracting and I didn't see the "Your Information" icon next to it. That helps describe exactly what you distribute. Also "your information" is vague. It would help if it was more specific as to what information you're distributing.

2) Not really. If someone's website is already on Google, why is their logo listed? How do you publish someone's marketing materials to Google? Also, why should I or someone else care about having info on MySpace or Topix or fwix? I didn't know those were sites business cared about, and I haven't even heard of the last two.

3) You already have the egg guy in the logo, I think it's a little much to also have him be the primary focus on the explanation graphic of how your service works. Also, I don't like to view videos about products because they always take too long. I might suggest also adding a page that describes the benefits of your product so that people can learn more before having to decide to sign up. I'm still not exactly sure how the service works.
So, how about you pull your checkbook and compensate those guys for ripping their lives up on your promise?

That seems to be the least you should do, given that you've 'seen the light' and realize how badly you f'd up.
Dangerous in what sense? He's making an ethical argument, not a legal or economic argument, as you're implying. It's all gossip, unlike (say) wikileaks.
I built my own for $200. Mine has a treadmill underneath it too.

http://blog.8thlight.com/articles/2010/2/25/walk-and-code
This actually wasn't a surprise — I wrote about it a few weeks ago (http://techcrunch.com/2010/03/27/facebook-privacy-connect/) and it was hinted at in Facebook's new Terms of Service.

Facebook knows it could lead to some major backlash too, so they're being very conservative with the initial rollout. If you go to Yelp, it's actually hard to tell at first glance that any data sharing has occurred. Go to Pandora and it will know what bands you like, but who is going to get upset about that? And Docs.com doesn't appear to be open to the public yet.

As the program expands, though, there could be a pretty serious shitstorm. I don't think people understand what the 'Everyone' option means, and this could be the first time they realize what they signed up for during Facebook's privacy overhaul last December, when Everyone became the default.
I've used Raphael and Processing.js, have to say I liked Raphael a lot better. Coding was more intuitive, and the performance seemed a lot better.
Where do you work (city and industry if you can't share employer)?

Despite reading more about motor-adjustable desks the last few years, I've not yet seen one in a workplace.
I'm reasonably certain that you cannot copyright the design of a physical product. Apple might be able to patent the design of a phone, especially if its design is novel in some way, but copyright is reserved for "intellectual works" like writing, artwork, computer software, etc.
Are you going after Jill the restaurant owner or John the web startup junkie?

Our target market are small businesses, like Jill the restaurant owner. We have found that these people want to take advantage of the internet, know that they should, but don't know how to go about it. That's where we come in, as a one stop shop to help them.

Thanks for the feedback. Maybe we'll try putting up a few example customer images/descriptions.
Ah, but why then was Flash at the same kind of penetration #s prior to Flash supporting video (Flash 6)? Also, as I mentioned in my post not all video is meant to be in a little rectangle on the page.
I love the idea of automatic background updates, but I would prefer to know when they've happened. At least pop up a message the next time I restart the browser. (Steam's update model is fantastic.)

The thing I hate about silent updates is that if they cause something to break, I have no indication that a browser update is a possible culprit. If I am informed of an update and then find that something has stopped working, I at least have a starting point for resolving the issue.
Also, I'd like to add that Feedback Army is great for this kind of high-level website feedback: http://www.feedbackarmy.com/
"Never ascribe to malice that which is adequately explained by incompetence" - Napoleon Bonaparte.
There is an extension called "Search Box" that might do what you want in chrome. This is a secondary search gadget.
But you know what? There's a setting in Privacy Settings->Applications and Websites called "Instant Personalization". Uncheck it and there you go. I realize there are a lot of people who won't do this but the option is there.
Then it's still not a straight-up numbers game. Followers are not created equal, traffic is not created equal, and people do not spend equally on your product or service (at least, if your pricing is at all smart).
It's a growing process. The point is that it looks better than it did.
It took them what, 10 years to start proposing what Flash has done in 5.

And considering...
* The plans for the standard to be completed will still take around 10 years
* Flash can move at a much faster pace in development
* Flash penetration gets to 90% in less than one year
* Browser penetration moves very slowly - 8 years after release, MSIE 6 is still at 22%

...do you really think things will improve that much in 5 years?

I can't wait for 5 years to pass by. When Flash (and Silverlight) are even more improved, when they're still evolving, when Flash is widely used in mobile devices (other than the ones built by one rotten Apple), when HTML5 is still a mess for development, when cross-browser HTML support is still wild west, and when HTML5 is still unrealistic for Real-World development due to lack of penetration... that's when reality will start hitting people in the face.

But hey, maybe another 5 years later? Who knows.
Although the top tier candidates may not be applying at many places, they are receiving many more first, second, or even third interviews. Thus, their timing is tight in a two week window near the end of school when they start receiving offers. Near-Bottom-tier candidates may receive less interviews and are incentivized to perform more desperate acts in order to receive interviews, and thus have more time for puzzle-based applications.

But as I said, it's not too big of a deal, if they would only post ahead of time how long puzzles would be active, so one could complete them before this tightly-timed period.
This is going to be a very interesting debate moving forward. Flash has shown what happens if you let all elements of a page have the same rights to resources - and Adobe is working on ways of dealing with the issue.

Now HTML5 is going to have to deal with the problem and they we'll have to wait until browsers make their own implementation of a solution that will probably be similar to Adobe's eventual solution.
@grellas, @lotharbot, great points. Yep, the goal of writing is to communicate an idea -- brevity is a tactic.

I love this quote by Einstein: Things should be as simple as possible, but not more so. If something is truly necessary, then keep it, but be strict about what is needed.
Maybe instead of a dream job, the question should be "what is your dream life?"

Found this on "BetterExplained" a while back. It's about 3 minutes and well worth it:

http://www.neticons.net/music_life/

I love the last line...
Depends what sort of followers they are.

The shitmydadsays guy has a million followers, but their level of loyalty is pretty low. If he all of a sudden stopped posting occasional funny shit his dad says and started posting "Special offer on new Sprint cellphone plans!" and "Hey, have you heard the good news about Jesus Christ" then he'd find himself low on followers pretty quick.

On the other hand, a band of followers who think you're awesome and really care about your opinions on things is extremely valuable.
No worries.

Thinking on things a little more: I'm not sure what your conversion rates are like, but that element of 'what exactly is involved here - how does it work?' is the thing that causes most friction for me..

If you were to explain somewhere: 'we do X, you do Y, we do Z.. then everything's ready for lift-off' then that would remove the last hurdle, in my mind at-least.
I did just that, and this is what it told me:

"Please keep in mind that if you opt out, your friends may still share public Facebook information about you to personalize their experience on these partner sites unless you block the application."
Thanks for the heads up, I'm definitely opting out.

From the blurb that was presented when I tried to opt out: "Please keep in mind that if you opt out, your friends may still share public Facebook information about you to personalize their experience on these partner sites unless you block the application."

Basically there's no way of preventing "select Facebook partners" from having access to my profile.