skysight-inc/HackerNews huggingface dataset:
I don't think it has to do with PG anymore specifically. But rather, if you were to mention HN in a cover letter as the way you heard about a job opportunity, then your Hacker News profile would likely be checked out. I've had it happen 2 out of 2 times so far.
I'd give my opinion on this, but I'm afraid to do so.
Different use cases. It's like why there is a need for both Illustrator and Photoshop.

SVG is great for vector graphics but for fast bitmap-based graphics you need <canvas>.

You do not want to handle bitmaps where each pixel is an object.
How does being challenged by BMX help a kid learn basic reading skills?
Is anybody able to visually identify said object? Oh...a CD blanks spindle.
> Microsoft would probably wrap them in a do-not-hit-us term and sell them to trolls.

Oh really? How about some supporting evidence?

The best evidence would include examples. After all, Microsoft buys companies all the time. If this is something that Microsoft will "probably" do, surely they've done it several times before.
What about Flex apps? Can those be exported to HTML5 too?
Criticizing bad ideas isn't whining, and if there was ever an idea in need of criticism it's the conventional performance review process.
CD/DVD spindle.
Spindle that used to hold empty writable DVDs/CDs.
Agreed. The case increases friction, which makes it much more stable on your lap or knee. The tuck-in flap enables 3 different stand positions: low angled landscape, tall angled landscape, and vertical portrait. Those last two are ideal for use with the Apple Bluetooth keyboard. Also, you can use the flap as a sun shade for occasional outdoors use. (iPad is really an indoors device, though.)

IMO, the case increases iPad ergonomics by 50%.
Alternative headline: "Hacker News on Hacker News: Hacker News is great!"

Yes, it occurred to me that this might get voted up for the wrong reasons. And, yes, that's probably what's happening now, and I dutifully feel like a karma whore. I thought about it overnight, and that didn't feel like a good reason to censor myself in general. If you disagree, perhaps downvote here as a counterbalance.
IT is particularly like that, since there are so many different ways to do things. Is your storage iSCSI or FC? Are your server Windows or UNIX? Is your hardware Dell or Sun? The fact is that 80% of the technology is the same between them, and what matters is being able to learn new ones and adapt. People are still writing C99, but you'd be hard pressed to find someone still using Compaq hardware.
I've wondered about this from other job postings I've read:

Does "Really smart engineer" mean someone, specifically, with an "engineering" degree?
Looks like I've been wrong predicting Russia reaction:

http://www.alertnet.org/thenews/newsdesk/LDE63A08I.htm

Fortunately!!
Black Hole Sun: a slight reversal of fortune for Apple
On this topic, is there a good place to ask "does this exist?" where you'll get good answers. Like, when I'm about to start hacking on something, I'll Google around a little, but sometimes I find out after I start/finish that it already exists in a reasonably-good form. An Ask HN thread every once in awhile I guess would be ok, but it seems like overkill in many cases, especially if not many people would really be interested in the answer.

I guess ideal would be a piece of HN just for that that doesn't end up on the homepage, but some people would look over them once a day or so and see if they do know of something that exists.
> Steamboat Willie is still not in the public domain.

That's true, but misses the point. Even if Steamboat Willie enters the public domain, Mickey Mouse doesn't enter the public domain.

Sherlock Holmes is in the public domain - I can sell new Sherlock Holmes stories. Mickey Mouse is protected by trademark, so I can't sell a new Mickey Mouse story, no matter how many Mickey Mouse stories have gone off-copyright.
> If Flash animated advertising turns into <canvas> animated advertising, how will we block it effectively

I think you would need to analyze which <canvas> elements are using Adobe's JavaScript library. This is more computation intensive then searching for Flash object embeds, and I think if you did it right - you could sell this plug-in.
This is a great job posting, but its completely focused on the benefits to the company, not the job seeker. In the context of the site it's fine because their main jobs page is awesome http://www.airbnb.com/jobs but if this was posted on a job board, it would need a lot of work to lure someone who didn't know about airbnb in advance.
That's an extraordinary claim, given that it's more likely that the secretive & perfectionist Apple might have merely been quietly finishing and documenting the SDK, only using the web apps story to placate developers and buy time.
Prey tell, how long ago did you look a C#?

I ask because it seems to have a bad rep among many people here (and I don't think it is only because it is a MS product). The first couple of versions of C# did indeed suck the rear-end of an ass, but the latest version has functional programming, lambda functions and the ability to extend any class you want with a function.

If you want the security of a static language (or, like me, need it to avoid doing stupid things), you really should take another look at it; when I did so, I was quite surprised myself.

As for Java, well I don't write Java anymore - these days I mostly just use short cuts in Eclipse so that it writes the stuff I need.
Degree != smart

That said, it is a heuristic for determining who's smart. You just have to realize that it's a very imperfect tool.
This reminds me of the experiences of GE under Jack Welch, with his "rank-and-yank" initiative: 10 percent, each year, gets fired. It relies on the faulty assumption that the percentage of good vs. bad employees is constant.

First year, you can fire 10% without much complaint, because most of the people you're getting rid of are deadwood. Second year, it's a bit harder. Third year, the obvious deadwood is gone and nobody wants to lay off 10% of their workers. This is when people start getting pissed off.

The enforced rank distribution is just there to make it easier to fire people. They're afraid of termination lawsuits that might occur if someone gets fired with a trail of 4s and 5s.
Besides some kind of interactive bitmap editor, where would someone need dynamic bitmap graphics that would be too much for a very fast SVG implementation but not too much for <canvas>?
Awesome job posting, would like to see some kind of salary range listed though -- but I guess that depends on what you can bring to the table.
Monotouch is not an alternative runtime - it is compiled code. There are alternative runtimes out there such as for lua etc (there is also an LLVM compiled version too).
webkit2png is at least five and a half years old: http://simonwillison.net/2004/Sep/11/webkitpng/
Bigger != better

In fact, a lot of the time the inverse is true (smaller == better).
I think that you are 100% correct about the importance of a universal packaging system and its importance to Linux's wide spread adoption for desktop PCs. I think that you are wrong on the being "too late now" part, but perhaps this is only wishful thinking on my behalf.

I do also think that you are likely correct in part on your 'too late' aregument, as the Linux community did miss a big opportunity while Vista was flopping... But just remember: there will be another Millennium Edition or Vista... Plus, there is always hope that innovation alone can serve as a big enough to draw for that next big Linux conversion-inspiring movement - think Beryl/Compiz as I do recall a huge surge of interest in Linux during its initial release into the wild!
sorry i did not express myself clearly: I was not talking of the recent health issues, I am thinking of the years in which he was not at apple (eightysomething to '97)
It seems to me that what's led to the success of the Internet is that it's not a managed environment. Anyone is free to release anything (subject to it not harming the rest of the ecosystem), and either it sticks, or it dies. Thus, its users can pick out what balance is most useful to themselves.

But Apple believes that they can judge our needs better than we ourselves can. They have the wisdom (so they believe) to say that this hypothetical niche vertical app is less important than having everything meet their own rules, so it's not allowed to exist.

Apple may even find that this buys them some short-term success. But in the long term, this will eventually lead to ossification and the same scrap heap as mainframes et al.
Exactly, I don't see what learning an older style language buys me - having to deal with a noisier syntax, .h files, manual refcounting etc.

I chose monotouch as having done more high level language development recently, I don't want to go back to those things - and even find them abhorent.

I also don't want to learn a "ghetto" language, which is locked to one platform - I want to be able to do learn skills that are useful cross platform (getting more use of a language I can use elsewhere).

I don't buy that I won't get the most out of the platform doing this either, if I need every last bit of CPU and memory I'm probably doing something wrong anyway.
If PG/YC cut ties with HN, the site and community would die.
Not coincidentally, Enron also used this model. I think that this is the worst idea possible. It encourages employees to compete with one another rather than working as a team.
He just refers back to the TOS, we really need someone to ask
- "Can we develop with Monotouch?"
and a statement of
- "This breaks the TOS"
Not just saying "if it breaks the TOS"
We really need them to specify for each tool that we ask Yes/No - not to just refer us to the TOS.
I didn't mean to imply that he doesn't have huge natural skill. He does, certainly. But what pushed him from a great runner to the greatest runner is a lot of focused training on his technique, and I'm sure that was arduous.
My wife was teaching in a public school in NYC. They apply a teaching philosophy called "inclusive classrooms." The idea is that the highest performing kids and the lowest performing kids should all be in the same class so the advanced ones can "help" the slower ones. The result is the kids with promise don't get taught and can't reach their full potential.

You said it's "tricky to run experiments in education." I would modify that to say that it's tricky to run proper experiments. What they are doing is running experiments without using controls or metrics. How can they get away with this? I believe it is because of the unpopularity of the idea that differences exist and should be taught to differently.
Also of note: What is the value of the coverage you're courting? Getting TC coverage for a blogging widget is probably worth quite a lot. Getting TC coverage for a product aimed at senior citizens, probably not worth a lot. Maybe you'll get some attention from possible partners, but don't expect it to drive many customers.
I think another reason why robotic limbs have a tendency to look unnatural is that often they'll move at a constant rate of speed - unlike an actual limbs that accelerate, move at X speed, then decelerate.

This is important for UI designers/developers to keep in mind because the same thing will make any animation look unnatural. Most UI frameworks have animation support for the penner easing equations and you should definitely use them. Its something that it is easy to tell that something "isn't right", but its hard to tell exactly what it is.
Ah, sorry. I thought since Lance has been tested so many times and always declared clean,that you must have been refering to Bolt. :)
Researcher's labour of love leads to Multiple Sclerosis breakthrough
For the equivalent of 2 years membership I can purchase an impressive array of new and used shop tools and accessories and be well on my way.

Here is a good example of what a properly equipped desktop machine shop might look like with the equivalent of 4 years membership.

http://workshop.modelengines.info/shoppics.html

My favorite is the lathe-mounted microscope.
http://microscope.modelengines.info/taigmicroscope.html
Your second and third points could be read as, "I like it because it makes the app store less competitive."

I guess I like it too because I don't want the next decade of personal computing to be an Apple monopoly, and making the app store less competitive is a good thing.
Could someone explain what "recess on Thursday (yes, like elementary school)" means? Thanks.
Desktop Linux is worlds better than it was when I last used it seriously ten years ago, but it still has plenty of issues. I'd be reluctant to recommend it to anyone non-technical.

Case in point: I recently bought an EeePC 1005PE and installed Ubuntu Netbook Remix on it. This is probably the most popular netbook sold today, but networking and power management were completely borked under a fresh install. Figuring out what was wrong and fixing it was a distinctly non-trivial process that took hours and a couple of reinstalls. Even then, battery life under Ubuntu is drastically worse than the same hardware running Windows 7.
Err... why is this frontpage news, what the hell?
"MySql" ? Eh, call it MySQL!
http://jottit.com does all this and more. It's a hosted solution, not sure if you're looking for something to install.
He talks about "staged obligation", where you fool them into thinking the registration form is only two or three fields, and then, when they hit "submit", show them more fields. He claims that this gets a higher registration rate than showing them all the fields at once.

This is a great example of a "dollar auction". If you've never heard of them, here's the wikipedia explanation. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dollar_auction

Most of us get in a dollar auction whenever we are placed on hold for a long time. If you hang up, you lose your entire "investment" of the minutes you already spent on hold, so you keep holding.

I like this idea of applying dollar auctions to web site design. It had never occurred to me, even though I was very familiar with them.
I released PyWebShot today, which does a similar thing for Linux, but generates thumbnails (or arbitrary size) rather than whole page images. Details at http://www.coderholic.com/pywebshot-generate-website-thumbna... and code on GitHub
Make sure to read the blog comments! Ulf Wiger has posted some new updated code that isn't reflected in the blog post.
PyWebShot - python webpage screenshots for Linux
How Steve Jobs knows layers of abstraction suck
A screengrab from the iTunes/Safari common files directory on Windows.
Are We Zeroing In on the Hard Problem of Explaining Consciousness?
Blast from the past.

http://www.tuaw.com/2007/01/10/apple-vps-confirm-no-3rd-part...
Why US recovery will be bigger, faster, and stronger than economists expect?
Thought this was going to be a link to http://static.businessinsider.com/image/4bbf279f7f8b9a457377...
That's what's called a slippery-slope argument. It's also a fallacy.

It was reductio ad absurdum, not slippery slope. Slippery slope would be "If we let Apple do this, the next step will be having to be 'professional enough' to be legally permitted to start a startup", which is not what the gp said.
In other words, you were never a developer/user for the iPhone, and now you still won't be.
I agree, but not because every participant wants in to YC. PG is the guiding anchor for the site. It's similar to how people speculate Digg would be different without Kevin Rose. These site creators are hosts. It's like going to someone's house; while you may be allowed to wander around your behavior will generally reflect the values of the host. The quality of HN is a flattering testament to the high bar set by having PG as host, as well as deliberate measures implemented to defend against degradation.
Napoleon never said that. It comes, in fact, from this lowly place:

http://www.amazon.com/Murphys-Law-Book-Two-Reasons/dp/B00123...

... and its author is a guy who won a contest to come up with successors to Murphy's Law. Backstory here:

http://www.statusq.org/archives/2001/11/26/
http://www.statusq.org/archives/2001/12/04/

A very similar line occurs in a Robert Heinlein story.

Edit: Googling around, I ran across the following quote from a German general which was cited as an antecedent to the above. While it only vaguely resembles that idea, it is a marvelous specimen of that distinct microgenre, witty aphorisms by dudes from European military history:

I divide my officers into four classes; the clever, the lazy, the industrious, and the stupid. Each officer possesses at least two of these qualities. Those who are clever and industrious are fitted for the highest staff appointments. Use can be made of those who are stupid and lazy. The man who is clever and lazy however is for the very highest command; he has the temperament and nerves to deal with all situations. But whoever is stupid and industrious is a menace and must be removed immediately!

Isn't that great?

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hanlons_razor
Daily Kos: My iPad as a tool
If not many people are interested in an answer then it wont make the front page.
If you have a top 10 app on the app store, it's likely that you'll probably do the legwork to port the app to whatever language is necessary to run on the platform. It's probably a poor business decision to just "give up" $5000 per day of revenue because you need to rewrite the app.

There are many developers that would love to take trade places with those 10 apps in the top 100. If I knew something like Doodle Jump was written on the .NET platform, I'd probably jump at the chance to make a similar clone in hopes of taking it's place.
Hmm sounds like I should get the dev phone then.

Could I have a dev phone and a personal phone and swa the sims between them as needed?

Or would the dev phone work fine as a personal phone?
Multiple Sclerosis, not Microsoft.
Statement from operators of i.root-servers.net re Beijing node packet tampering
This blogger has mastered the Rails community attitude, apparently. Maybe he's channeling Zed Shaw.
A paternalistic employer.
But that also means I won't have much likelihood of an answer. I want a place where some people who want to be helpful will see it even if not too many people care about the answer.

Perhaps Twitter and/or Quora are my answers
To be honest, Unity3D is a lot faster than Sio2 or someones whipped up 3d engine.
We use a modified webkit2png, along with some ruby and erlang RPC stuff, to take thumbnails of flash videos at vodpod.com. It works great!
IconSweets – 60 Free Vector Icons
iconSweets is a free icon set containing 60 vector Photoshop shapes, influenced by icon sets such as Glyphish and Pictoico. This icon set perfectly suitable for iPhone & iPad apps or your new web project. The set comes as .PSD files in 16×16px and 32×32px sizes.
Linux is a superior OS. Windows is a popular OS.
It promotes kiss ass mentality and the only people left are the ones who blindly follow the boss.

If a company ever needs to have Performance reviews, 360 degree reviews are good. The manager also gets to be reviewed by the subordinates anonymously and quickly every one knows where the trust is missing. This eliminates all the managers who are promoted by randomness, and really do not have any leadership skills but politically survive.

Rarely Performance reviews are conducted for good intentions, they are a tool to conduct lay offs and pocket million Dollar bonuses to executives who can show this as money saved.
If you strip out all of his rewriting of history, you are left with a single half paragraph that forms the evidence on which the premise of his article rests.

The Dow Jones industrial average, hovering near
11,000, is up 70 percent in the past year, and auto
sales in the first quarter were up 16 percent from
2009. The economy added 162,000 jobs in March,
including 17,000 in manufacturing. The dollar has
gained strength ...

I could comment on whether these four data points actually are real and actually bode well or ill for long term economic health, but I don't need to. Seeing them there, shivering alone in that single paragraph, unprotected by flowery prose, should let you evaluate that for yourself.
If it is a simple GUI or 2D app, your ok. If you have something like unity3D and have to recreate an entire 3D & physics engine, learn openGL, and optimize it enough so it runs just as well as Unity3D thats a completely different story!
How bad is the recession in the US? Here in Iceland it certainly doesn't feel like what the media seemed to be hoping for (Armageddon).
This lemming doesn't enjoy meta-self-congratulation either, but comments like this even less. Please decline to post them. It isn't hard to keep to a (much) higher standard.

http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1253342
Naturally it's Adobe's job to handle the quirks when generating the output. I would be surprised, if forcing developers to edit generated code even crossed their minds. It just doesn't make any sense.
As a developer, I might prefer to write local apps. As a user, the zero install + security guarantees make web apps much preferable. Plus, given that cross-platform toolkits only offer the lowest common denominator, the resulting applications typically don't look better than a good web app.

Moreover, repeated installations and deinstallations degrade a computer's performances and security. It's much more obvious under Windows than under correctly designed OSes, but always remains true.

I expect a 95% web-based slate/phone to be mostly stateless, and to remain functional indefinitely without requiring administration, as opposed to a computer.
Do you think policy-makers should have knowledge about the things they make policy regarding?
Whenever "vector look" is not what you aim for.

One huge example is games - vast majority of games use bitmap graphics.

Or if you want to do some pretty data visualizations like heatmaps.

----

Edit: Here are some examples showing what fast canvas bitmap graphics can do (and what would be very very hard to do with SVG):

http://29a.ch/2010/3/24/normal-mapping-with-javascript-and-c...

http://mrdoob.com/lab/javascript/effects/fire/01/

http://mrdoob.com/lab/javascript/effects/water/00/

http://www.nihilogic.dk/labs/canvas_music_visualization/

http://www.nihilogic.dk/labs/strange_attractors/

http://www.p01.org/releases/512b_jspongy/jspongy.htm

http://www.p01.org/releases/20_lines_hypno_trip_down_the_fra...

http://www.p01.org/releases/20_lines_dynamic_hypnoglow/

http://www.ehkä.fi/
Impressing (or at least not disappointing) PG was definitely a big incentive early on, and it lingers to a degree. I think, though, that PG's role in that has been replaced by the community at large. People are civil and thoughtful because they want to live up to the community.

(Incidentally, I think in communities where people are jerks, it's also because they think that's what the community expects.)
They have these awesome cradle-like things at Best Buy for displaying them. I asked the rep if you can buy them somewhere, and he said "no".
Fifteen years does not guarantee competence, just like being CEO or CTO does not. Besides, if he were successful in business, why would he be in government? Warren Buffet has never held a cabinet position, to my knowledge.